


Turn the stone and look beneath it

by slowHistorian



Series: One Tin Soldier [1]
Category: Gundam Wing, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Crossover, Domestic Fluff, Gen, New Avengers, Not A Fix-It, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Salty Team Iron Man, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but it will be there, eventually, romance is not the focus, stuck in a new world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-10-02 11:32:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17263481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slowHistorian/pseuds/slowHistorian
Summary: Their war was over, they won. For the measure of winning a war, anyway. The truce was what was supposed to matter. But in the end, the other side used public opinion and their own renewed authority to try to bring an end to the perceived threat of the Gundam Pilots.Except it went wrong. So very wrong. And now the pilots have to navigate this weird new world with its super heroes and aliens and magic while deciding if they even WANT go try to go back.Hint: They really, really don't.(Tags are subject to change, since I suck at tagging. There are too many to chose from and I hate walls of tags.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Gundam Wing was my first fandom, and I've chased down just about every story written in it since the late 90s. I've been wanting to write a MCU/GW crossover for years, but every time I hammer down a basic plot, MCU gives me more feels. 
> 
> I am a pro-Team Iron Man, and while I will try to stay away from demonizing for the sake of demonizing, there were some things that happened in the MCU that I think are ridiculous and I will happily jump on the trope bandwagon for those.
> 
> Please don't make me moderate comments, I'm too old to parent internet strangers.

### Prologue

This was possibly the most morbid place they could have chosen to hide in, in all honesty.

This old machining factory, with it's dust-covered fabrication assemblies meant for putting together the pieces of a Gundam standing silent sentinels over them was necessary, was the best place to lay low, after they'd gotten Duo out. All of their plans had gone to hell recently, and their safe houses and allies were no more. Maganacs and Sweepers, Trowa's circus and Quatre's sisters. All were being watched by the Preventors, waiting for any of the former pilots to turn up. Splitting up was both the best thing they could do, and very much out of the question.

Nowhere was safe anymore, after all.

Duo, so quiet, so still, these last few days, was curled up against Trowa, trusting the other boy to be his shield. They'd gotten him out, in the end, but not after he'd spent so much time in the hospitality of Merquise and the Preventors. He'd spoken, a couple times, but he needed much more time then they currently had to heal, as if he could ever go back to the boy he'd been before. Why hadn't they _listened_ to him? When he said he didn't trust Une's change of heart, when he refused to work for the Preventors, when he said something bad was coming for them down the pipe? He'd gone to ground, cutting off all contact, and only when the Preventors had come for the rest of them, warrants in hand, did they realize how damning that silence truly was. They knew he was on the run, same as they were, but it was a couple months before they found out that he'd been captured. 3 months at the Preventors' so-called mercy. He wouldn't talk about what happened in the prison.

Heero looked down at the screen before him, their only connection to the outside world and what the Preventors were up to. And now he had to give them the bad news he'd just seen. He hadn't thought this whole situation could get much worse, and he was so, so tired of it all. He closed his laptop with a definitive click.

Quatre looked up from where he and Wufei had been looking over an old comm unit, trying to figure out their next step. "Heero?"

Heero looked up towards the ceiling briefly. So tired. Then he turned towards his friends, his brothers. 

"We're not wanted for arrest anymore." he intoned softly. Duo curled up tighter, like he already knew what Heero was going to say next. He possibly did. "Now it's 'Kill on Sight'."

"Fuck." It would have been amusing, coming from Wufei as it did, but it was simply what they all already thought, expletive or not. "It's the war all over again, isn't it? Us vs. everyone else."

Heero lashed out suddenly, knocking the chair he'd been sitting in across the small space. He hated himself for the flinch Duo gave at it, and sent an apologetic look Trowa's way when the other glared at him for it. 

"We can't win. No matter what we do, we can't win. Fight their war for freedom, for them? 'Not ours', they say. Win their battles? 'Good job, but not good enough'. Oz signs a peace treaty, then starts a so-called 'peacemaking outfit', putting their own people back in charge, and the goddamn world celebrates them. Votes them in as _The_ preeminent crime-fighting authority. I'm so sick of it. I'm sick of fighting, I'm sick of the bullshit. We fought, we bled, we sacrificed, we WON. And now we're "too dangerous to let be". So now we have to die, too??"

Quatre came over, wrapping a hand warmly around Heero's forearm, trying to calm him. Heero knew he needed it, was making himself sick with rage and the hints of despair, but in the brief year after the Eve Wars, they'd had a taste of freedom and childhood. Heero had taken the time to try to learn how to just be Heero Yuy, 16 year old kid. He just couldn't comprehend what else they were supposed to do now. He was tapped out, he didn't _want_ to fight anymore. Wufei was standing now as well, between Quatre and Trowa. 

"We'll think of something," the blond said. But even he looked defeated.

"I just want to let the world burn," Heero replied softly.

Before Quatre could reply, something at the edge of Heero's hearing made him turn. A sound he hadn't heard in over a year, a sound that /should not/ have been there. 

A beam cannon charging up. 

Heero gripped Quatre's wrist.

Sensing his panic, Quatre grabbed Wufei's shoulder.

Wufei reached down and took Trowa's hand to pull him and Duo to their feet.

The world exploded.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you might notice I'm partial to short chapters. My stories are a series of scenes that I write out, then work on connecting the pieces: short chapters are the result.

### Chapter 1

Tony sipped on the coffee in his hand as he looked over the expanse of the Pacific ocean before him. At one point, he'd marveled at the vastness of the world's oceans, usually when he was scoffing at his father's attempts to locate Captain America. After Afghanistan, large bodies of water were no longer fascinating. And after seeing space through the wormhole in New York, the size of the oceans no longer captured his attention either. He's seen just how big the rest of the universe was, after all. 

So it wasn't that often that he took the small trail that lead from his house down to the private beach. This new mansion in Malibu had the floor to ceiling windows he favored, so a beachview was easy to come by. Today though, he was feeling restless. He'd retreated to Malibu after Siberia, after he'd had to resort to Extremis and The Cradle to save his crushed sternum. His chest still have flare ups of pain, but Dr. Cho had reassured him that they were just psychosomatic, that he was actually was in better chest health then he'd been since before the arc reactor. But these last couple weeks, he'd sequestered himself here, working to get his bearings. He'd designed Rhodey's exoskeleton, the first version of what he was going to do to get his friend walking again, and sent the plans off to Pepper for manufacturing. He started poking at the Accords, compiling a list of Ross's sins, violations of the Sokovian Accords, violations of US law, violations of the Geneva Convention. Anything to put the man away. Then there was his standard SI duties, R&D work, suit upgrades, etc.

Any and all work to drown out the voices in his memory.

_I can do this all day._  
_He's my friend._

Tony's thoughts were derailed suddenly as the surf in front of him was no longer as unoccupied as it had been moments before. In the water, around where the tide was chest height, a person was floundering, unable to get their feet under them. With a curse, Tony dropped his travel mug to the sand and rushed down. He didn't know why there was a person in the water in the blink of an eye, but he wasn't going to let them drown. Reaching into the water, he grabbed the person by the only thing he could reach, an arm, and started hauling them backwards out of the water. It was just moment before the were safely on the beach, and Tony took a moment to catch his breath and look at the person he'd rescued as the other knelt in the sand and coughed out the water they'd inhaled.

It was a young man, probably mid-to-late teens, with long brown hair and dressed in dark clothes, including a black longcoat which had probably weighed him down in the water and hindered him surfacing. He certainly hadn't swam up to Tony's part of the beach, not in the getup he was wearing, and Tony had a feeling in his gut that magic was involved somehow.

Fucking magic.

As the harsh coughing tapered off and the boy remained kneeling but breathing deeply, Tony reached out and gripped his shoulder. "You ok, kid?"

The change was instantaneous. The boy shot backwards, out of Tony's reach, looking at him in shock and no little amount of fear. Tony noted, rather offhandedly, that his eyes were purple; not a shade of blue that looked purple in the right light, but actually purple. He was back to coughing again, as the move had apparently jarred his lungs, and Tony's breath shortened in sympathy. Then the boy seemed to clock where they were, as he looked around in confusion, most of it centered on the ocean to his right.

Yeah, fucking magic.

"Where-?" the question was cut off due to coughing, and Tony turned to look for his coffee cup. Glad he'd grabbed a cup with a lid, he went over and retrieved it, heading back to the boy. He stopped about 6 feet away, when the boy began drawing back from him again. He offered the cup with a gesture, then put it in the sand and stepped back until the cup was half way between them.

"It's just coffee, you know, the nectar of the gods and the lifeblood in my veins. I've got enough adrenaline now to not need it and you look like you need a hot drink. I'm Tony Stark, by the way. As for where you are, you're just west of the city of LA, in California, United States and planet Earth."

The boy crept closer, grabbing the coffee, though at Tony's words, he plopped down in the sand. "This...is not what I would have expected of the afterlife." he said softly.

"Kid," Tony replied dryly. "If this is the afterlife, it's not the one above. You got a name?"

The boy struggled to his feet, still dripping from his impromptu saltwater bath. "Yeah. I'm Duo. Duo Maxwell."

* * *

It had taken a bit, but Tony managed to convince Duo to come up to the house. There was something about the boy, and Tony had learned in the last few months to trust the raging paranoia in his gut, something had Tony feeling like the Winter Soldier was behind him, hiking up the trail. If, you know, the Winter Soldier was a confused teenager.

"So, mi casa and all that," Tony waved his hand vaguely at the hand. "I've got a guest shower you can use since I guess you'll want to get the saltwater out of your hair, and I'll go grab some clothes for you to change into."

He headed off deeper into the house and Duo continued following, subdued. He seemed surprised at the guestroom, like he'd expected something different and smiled awkwardly at Tony when he went inside. Tony hovered, floundering, and then nodded. "I'll go get you some clothes."

Duo just nodded. "Thanks, Mr. Stark."

"Un-uh. None of that. 'Mr. Stark' is for shareholders, boardmembers and sycophants. Just Tony is fine."

There was a spark of personality in Duo's eyes, a bit of mischief that actually relaxed Tony to see. "Ok. Thank you, Just Tony."

Tony gave Duo his bitchiest look, which Duo just grinned at, then turned to go get something for the boy to wear for now. He wasn't the tallest man ever, but Duo was even shorter than him. Additionally, the house wasn't very well stocked. Tony had come here rather recently, so what he'd brought with him was a bit limited. Still, he figured he had some sweat pants and a tshirt for now.

"FRIDAY, get Duo's height and put in an order of clothes, ok? Tshirts, hoodies, jeans, etc."

"On it, boss!" Tony smiled at her enthusiasm. He hadn't been fair to FRIDAY, hadn't been able to treat her as he'd once treated JARVIS, and he had a feeling her learning wasn't tracking along as well as it should. He made a mental note to himself to look over her coding, to make things easier for her. 

"Also, see if you can get an id on our guest. First name Duo, last name Maxwell. His English has a slight accent I don't recognize, but start with the US anyway. And do I have a spare phone anywhere?"

"There are three spare phones in the house, Boss. One Starkphone model 1X in the wetbar, and two Starkphone Genus models, one on the mantle in the living room and one on top of the coffee machine in the kitchen."

"Great. Get the two Genus models on the network. I went swimming with mine, so go ahead and transfer my contacts and whatnot to the one on the coffee machine."

"Will do!"

Tony detoured to the kitchen to grab the phone, and then went to his suite to get some clothes. He was right about having some sweatpants, so after collecting the clothes and a comb from his bathroom, he headed back to the guestroom. After confirming with FRIDAY that the boy was still in the shower, he dropped the stuff on the bed and headed back to the livingroom.

* * *

Duo stood in the spray of the hot water, mind turning over and over again. The last thing he remembered before waking up in the fucking ocean of all places, was the explosion at the factory, shortly after Heero's meltdown. Someone had fired something? A beam cannon, he thought with a shudder, a blast which hit the main generator. He should be dead. He'd been fired on, point blank, from a beam cannon. People didn't survive that. He _shouldn't_ have survived that. And yet here he was, not dead, with assurances from the slightly awkward man who'd pulled him from the water. In California of all places, when he knew they'd been in South Africa. And _where_ were his brothers? If he survived, then they had to have as well.

The _had_ to have. Duo was 100% not ready to go it alone.

There were toiletries in the opulent shower, shampoo and whatnot that smelled kinda minty but not. Duo washed the salt from his hair and hurried to finish washing up. Locating his brothers couldn't be done by thinking at them really hard from the shower. Once out of the shower, he discovered the clothes on the bed, along with a comb. The tshirt had some sort of math joke on it, "Dear math, solve your own problems! I won't find your x, stop asking y!" and the pants were worn and soft. There was also a pair of thick socks, and after slipping them on, Duo went and put his clothes and boots in the shower to try without dripping on the floor, hanging his coat on the showerhead. He hoped Mr. Stark- Tony, wouldn't be annoyed by it.

Thoughts circling round to his strange host, Duo paused while combing out his hair. Tony Stark had seemed weirdly not weirded out by having to fish a strange kid out of an ocean, and had opened up his home without a thought. His manner had been strange, but it seemed to be borne of uncertainty with the situation and not subterfuge. What kind of life did this guy lead that this didn't seem to top his 'weird-o-meter'? Duo was thankful for his eidedic memory as he recalled coming in the sliding balcony doors of the home, through a living space to the guest room he was now in. He would be able to make his way back to the living space, where his host hopefully was. 

As he threw his hair into it's usual braid, Duo prayed to every god he knew that Tony Stark wasn't out there calling the Preventors on him. Like Heero'd said, he was tired. He was tired and still mentally coping from what had happened After his arrest 3 months ago, and from his rescue. He needed all the help he could get. Until he found his brothers, through, he would need to be brave. Be the Duo he was from Before.

Tony was indeed in the living space, tapping away on some sort of data pad, though Duo didn't recognize it. He looked up when Duo came in, smiling at the boy. Duo went over slowly, cataloging the large room. Aside from the sunken couches Tony was sitting on, there was a detached fireplace, a bar of some sort, and a scattering of art pieces. It was like if the Pink Princess had taste, though slightly clinically impersonal. Duo sank down on the plush couch a couple feet from Tony. 

"So I'm thinking taking a nap in the ocean probably wasn't on your agenda," Tony said, reaching forward and snagging what seemed liked a comm device off the table in the middle of the recess. He held it out to Duo, and smiled when Duo took it from him. "I don't know if you had a phone with you before you went swimming, but even if you did, it went swimming with you. If you have anyone's number memorized, you can call them from that."

Duo turned on the comm device with a simple touch to the main screen. There was an icon of a phone receiver in the bottom right, and pressing it opened a menu with a short list of people - Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, James Rhodes. Touching Tony's name brought up another list: 'Cell Phone', 'Malibu Home', 'New York Home'. Duo pressed the 'Cell Phone' button, and a number popped up. One digit, three digits, three digits, four digits. It was unlike any comm number Duo recognized, which were in the format Two-Four-Four-Five. The bad feeling in Duo's gut increased, and he finally looked back up at Tony. 

"These numbers aren't right," he said. "They're the wrong format."

Tony was watching him, though not with suspicion. He looked like he had a hunch that Duo just confirmed and at Duo's comment, he just nodded.

"Ok then." He sighed. "Alright, Ariel. Talk to me. Let's see if we can figure out how to get you to where you need to be, ok? Tell me what you were doing before you popped out of thin air? Where you were, what was going on?"

Duo set the comm device back down on the coffee table. "I don't- We..." He struggle to figure out where to start. "My brothers and I, we were in hiding. At a factory." He couldn't help but curl up on the couch, pulling his legs up and wrapping his arms around him. "We were being chased, and they'd just gotten me free. So we were regrouping in the factory, and someone shot something at us. I think- God, I think it was a beam cannon, or a blaster rifle."

"Not to detract from your story, but what's a beam cannon?"

"A thermo-kinetic directed-energy weapon. Typically used in space battles. NOT something that should be fired on a street, and I would have doubted that's what it was, but there wasn't any mistaking the blue glow of the blast."

Tony just blinked at him. "Space battles."

Duo tried to smile, despite the sinking feeling he was desperately trying to ignore. "No space battles here?"

"Yeeeeaaaah, you're definitely not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy."

It was like having it confirmed was the final piece Duo needed to fracture and break down completely. "Then where the fuck _am_ I? That comm number was weird and you have no idea what a beam cannon is and I want my brothers and I don't know why I was in the fucking ocean and how I ended up here when last I remember we were in South Africa and-" and it was getting hard to breath. Duo struggled to keep himself together, but it already been a really shitty couple of months. His vision swam and his chest hurt and then there was a voice talking softly:

"On my count, just breath, ok? In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three." Duo tried to match the pattern, and as his vision cleared, he noticed Tony had moved closer. Not quite close enough to touch, but his hand was out like he wanted to lay it on Duo's arm. Duo needed the grounding desperately and grabbed his hand, holding on tightly. At Tony's slight wince, he loosened grip but didn't let go. 

Tony didn't either.

As Duo regained control of himself, he smiled weakly at Tony. "Thanks," he said softly. Tony just gave him a lopsided smile. 

After a few minutes of silence, Tony spoke up again. "You're welcome here until we figure out what's what, and we'll need to find out if your brothers had the same thing happen and if they're here somewhere too. The guest room from earlier is yours, alright? The kitchen is up behind you and of course, this is the livingroom. If you need anything, FRIDAY can get it for you. In fact, FRIDAY girl, can you put in an order for burgers? The usual order, doubled, from the usual place."

"Of course, Boss!"

At the sound of the other voice, Duo startled. He hadn't seen anyone else in room. But there had been something in that voice, something slightly...off. "Computer?" he asked Tony.

Tony smiled. "Not exactly. Virtual Assistant. She runs the house, among other things."

Oh. Oh! That was...Duo looked at Tony in awe. Even more hints that he was very, very far from home, but still. No one that he was aware of in the EarthSphere had a working Artificial Intelligence.

"Um, Friday?" he called out. He could tell that Tony was waiting for something, but he kept quiet.

"Yes, sir? Do you want something in particular from the burger restaurant? I can send you the menu to your phone." Her voice seemed to come from very well hidden speakers somewhere in the room. 

"No, that's ok. Thank you though. I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Duo Maxwell."

"Well met, Duo Maxwell!"

It seemed to be the right course of action (not that he wouldn't have said hello anyway), as Tony was smiling again. Duo was still rocky about this whole situation, but he was starting to realize, he was going to be ok.


	3. Chapter 2

### Chapter 2

Chang Wufei was Not Happy. 

He had thought he was going to die in that explosion, going to die with his brothers, hiding from the Preventors. 

Instead, he'd woken up in a jungle of all places, thousands of kilometers or more, from where they'd been fired on by the moron shooting beam cannons in factory districts. He'd woken up curled in the roots of a massive tree, with his family sword on his back and his brothers nowhere in sight. With no knowledge of where he even was, he'd simply picked a direction and started walking. He certainly wasn't going to sit down and wait for the slow death by starvation or dehydration. He may abhor the idea of spending time in some random, untamed wilderness, but he was a survivor.

They all were.

Public service announcements about being lost in the woods or wilderness said to 'remain in place and wait for rescue; constant moving made it difficult to be found by searchers'. But there were only two groups of people that would be searching for Wufei: his brothers or the Preventors. If it were his brothers, he'd meet up with them elsewhere, once he was safe. If it was the Preventors, he'd prefer not to be found.

So he'd picked a direction, using the sun as the guide, and started walking. Walking towards the setting sun, away from the rising, hoping it would keep him in a straight line. Little used survival skills had him eating what vegetation he recognized to keep from starving. He'd found a river the next second day, and began to follow it instead, hoping and praying it headed towards some sort of ocean. At the very least, people tended to settle near rivers and he might hopefully stumble upon a settlement or town of some sort.

Instead, 3 days after he'd woken up, he'd stumbled upon the hunters.

The group of tall, Afrikaan women had startled at the sight of him. He was tired, hungry, and cranky. He'd eaten random plant parts for days, was missing his brothers and yearning for civilization. Listening to these women chatter at him in a language he didn't recognize, tired and lost and annoyed, he'd snapped at them in Common. As if he needed more frustrations, they didn't appear to recognize Common. One of the three, the oldest, had offered him some of their food, and judging by their pantomiming, a ride to...somewhere. As somewhere was better than nowhere, and that antagonizing possible rescuers was a very stupid thing to do in his current predicament, Wufei had striven to calm down, thanking the woman the only way he knew how: with a short bow. It amused her, thankfully, and after a quick bite to eat, they'd hiked back a kilometer or so to where the women had stashed a jeep. 

A jeep that had no wheels. And needed no driver, apparently. The feeling that Wufei was far, far from home was increasing. 

He'd gone with them, as they'd travel back along a dirt road, eventually intersecting with a paved one. Despite his greatest efforts, he fell asleep along the way, sheer exhaustion taking it's toll, and was awoken by the older woman shaking his shoulders. They'd arrived at a small village, and the other two women had disembarked. Wufei had followed his guide into what appeared to be her home, where she spoke, gesturing at the couch. Wufei sank down with a sigh, and the woman came to him, holding a blanket and pillow. After setting them on the couch, she gestured to her self, saying something over and over. 

"Xari."

Her name. Wufei tried it out, wishing he had Quatre's grasp of languages. "Zhaari?"

She'd laughed, but not unkindly, and nodded. Wufei gestured to himself and gave her his name. "Wufei."

"Woofay."

Close enough. Wufei had slept then, waking only when Xari had shaken him awake once more for food, and then going back to sleep for the night.

The military woman came in the morning, while Wufei was having breakfast with Xari. She and Xari had spoken on the couch for some time, before coming over to him. Wufei had come to trust Xari, respecting the strength of the woman who reminded him of Sally Po, who ran her own home and helped a stranger and had been hunting in the woods. Despite this, Wufei had no love lost of military. The actions of the Preventors was still on his mind. Thus, when the military woman, introduced as Nola, swapped between languages, Wufei kept shaking his head, replying in Common that he did not understand her. 

Even when she switched to English. 

English, along with Chinese and Common, was one of the languages he knew. But he did not trust this woman, though he held his tongue to keep from insulting her outright. She wouldn't have understood, after all. When she asked his name in English, he had replied in Common once more. Xari and Nola spoke in Xari's language for some time longer, and when Nola went to leave, Xari indicated that he was to follow her. Fantastic. Wufei bowed deeply to Xari, thanking her in Common for her help and hospitality, and she bowed shortly back, seemingly amused at this once more. Then Wufei followed Nola. 

Nola had apparently arrived in the village in some sort of plane, though it was unlike any plane Wufei had ever seen, and he'd taken a moment to just stare at it. It was roundish, and had no apparent wings, resembling an alien flying saucer Maxwell or Barton might have dreamed up. There was another military man next to it, one Nola indicated was named L'asa. Nola and L'asa escorted Wufei onto the vessel, where L'asa was apparently piloting and Wufei just stared around him in wonder. Far from home indeed. 

The flight was a short one, and Wufei watched out the main window as a large city, hidden on all sides by jungles and mountains, came into view. If Wufei's assumption that he was still on the Afrikaan Continent was correct, it wasn't any part he was familiar with. They landed on a landing pad, vertically like a helicopter, and there were more military there to meet them. Three men, and two more women. Nola spoke briefly as they disembarked to one of the men, then once more gestured to Wufei to follow. He was really getting sick of following along, but he'd play along for now. 

They entered a tall building, inside which people went back and forth in that way people just going about their day did. It was clearly a military installation, as the people there were uniformed and armed, carrying some sort of fire arm and at one point, Wufei noticed a spear or two. He was shown to a room with a pair of soft chairs and a table, not the typical interrogation setup, and left. 

After an hour of waiting, he started pacing. 

After two, he tried katas.

After three, he began meditating. 

At this point, however, new people entered the room. A young girl, no older than Wufei himself, flanked by a pair of tall female guards. Like he'd noticed before, they carried spears, and even from a distance, Wufei could see the sharp edge honed on them. He was glad no one had attempted to take his sword from him. The girl, not apparently military, but some form of higher up in an unknown class system judged by her bearing and demeanor, sank down into the second chair while her guards stood at the door. She indicated her name as Shuri, and tried the same trick Nola had back in the village, switching between languages including English. 

Wufei was mentally tired. Heero's rant back in the factory had rang true for all of them. After the war was over and the Gundams destroyed, Wufei had gone his own way, choosing to travel to the ancient homeland of his clan. It was the closest he'd ever be able to get to his birth family, after their utter annihilation during the war. He'd gone to try to reconnect to his roots, to see what would be required of him as a dutiful son of no parents. He had gone to the great libraries, had studied his own culture. He tried to see just who 'Chang Wufei' was, now that the bullets were no longer being fired.

Before he really had a chance to find out, however they were in the thick of it again, running from the UESA government and their Preventor lapdogs, hiding like the days of the war again, trying to find Duo, trying to stay one step again, trying to _rescue_ Duo. And now this: stuck in what was starting to look less and less like his world, with no allies except a woman in an Afrikaan village who didn't even speak the same language as him, who'd opened her home to a boy stumbling out of the jungle like Tarzan.

So in this room, when this girl had gotten around to English in her repertoire of languages, and asked to confirm his name, Wufei decided to actually answer.

"Gongzhu, my given name is Wufei. My family name Chang."

The guards behind Shuri shifted in discomfiture, while Shuri had paused at this, startled, and then began laughing. "My generals will not be pleased, Mr. Chang," she admonished. "They informed me that you did not seem to speak English."

"Your generals should not make assumptions. My brother has a saying for what assumptions make people into."

Shuri smiled. "I know the saying. I've often used it against my own brother." Then she grew serious. While her bearing called to mind the way both Relena Peacecraft carried herself, after she began to be less flighty and vapid, to take her role seriously. This was not a girl to anger or cross, no matter her age.

"Is there any particular reason you feigned understanding earlier?"

Wufei stared at her. He was seemingly alone, and this confident girl was starting to remind him of everything he'd liked and loved about his long-dead wife. He could continue to fight, to provoke her, and end up in a cage, waiting to see if this was in fact his home and Preventors were coming. 

Or he swallow his pride and ask for help.

"I do not know where I am. Your agent did not seem to recognize the Common language, which does not bode well for my current circumstances. I have been separated from my only family, and before I woke up in a land I did not recognize, I was being fired upon. I did not trust your military, and have had bad experiences with organized militant groups. I had just spent 3 days hiking through the jungle to find my way to civilization. My intentions were subterfuge until I could regain my bearings, and locate my brothers."

Shuri hummed softly, typing something onto the datapad she'd carried into the room with her. "Well, you certainly caught our attention, Mr. Chang. We are not fond of people simply wandering past our borders, and the initial report had been that you had wandered out of the jungle like a ghost. In fact, that is actually what the first witnesses reported, believing you to be a ghost until you ate something. Ghosts do not eat after all. What matters now is what is going to happen with you. You say you were being fired upon? Did you flee from something into the jungle?"

"Gongzhu." he admonished. "When I say I woke up in the jungle, that is exactly what I meant. I was with my brothers in a factory in Durban, when the ones pursuing us decided we were better off dead then arrested. Waking up, not to mention _where_ I awoke, was not anticipated. I honestly fear that I am the only one that survived."

She continued typing, but then paused, and looked at him. "I do not know where this 'Durban' is. Can you explain?"

This day was getting better and better. Part of Wufei wished to just return to Xari's home, to try to communicate via pantomime and ignore the greater world. "Durban is a city in the principality of South Afrika. It has a population of just over a quarter million people."

Shuri typed a bit longer, then set her datapad on the table, folding her hands on her lap. "Durban is not listed as a city in South Africa, and South Africa is not a principality of any nation, known or otherwise. I am beginning to believe you might have come from farther than you or I know, Mr. Chang. 'Common' is not the name of any language on Earth. I need to go speak with some people. You will need to remain here for a while longer. Do you require anything while I am gone? Food or entertainment, perhaps?"

Wufei sighed. "I am also starting to suspect how far from home I am, Gongzhu. If I might ask for a datapad so that I can look up the news? If my brothers survived as I did, their arrival might be in there."

Shuri stood, smoothing her dress as she did so. "I will have someone bring you a tablet connected to English news sites, Mr. Chang." She went to the door, one of the women guards turning to accompany her. "One more thing. The name you call me, what does it mean?"

He froze. It wasn't often he was called out for calling people by various titles or epithet in Chinese. His brothers had written it off as quirk of his months ago. "It means 'Princess'. You remind me of a woman I knew, though my respect for you is far greater than that particular on'na."

Shuri smiled brightly at him, though she did not explain why this amused her, and left the room. One of her guards remained behind with him. Wufei returned to his attempts at meditation.

Later, Shuri had returned and taken him to a new location, an actual verifiable palace, where she'd introduced him to her aforementioned brother, the King of this small nation. Wufei had shot her an unamused look at this, and she'd just tittered at him. Girls. They'd allowed him a small space in the west wing of the palace to stay, while the princess set her considerable might and mind to figuring out how to get him back to his world. He hadn't the heart to tell her he wouldn't leave without verification that his brothers had not come along to this new place.

There were others staying in this wing with him; 2 women and 2 men. Wufei was decidedly not fond of them. Of the two women, one was rude and calculating; the other, vapid and childish despite her age. The latter had reminded him of Relena at her worst, petulant and obnoxious, always going on about wanting to find Vision (she seemed to be able to see just fine from what he could tell) or go home. Wufei inquired only once where 'home' was, and when she could not answer, she had responded by acting like he was a small child, too dumb to think. Of the two men: one was a leader, the other was his follower. There was nothing more to it than that. It was...Treize and Une all over again, and Wufei stayed well away from the both of them.

No, Wufei was not happy.


	4. Chapter 3

### Chapter 3

Tony found Duo sitting out in the yard around 2'o'clock in the morning, a couple days after he'd come to stay with Tony. FRIDAY had alerted him to the problem from the rudimentary workshop he'd set up in the garage, after Duo had awoken from a nightmare. He stopped by the kitchen on his way outside, grabbing them both some coffee. Glancing out the window, he saw Duo sitting in one of the lawn loungers, on the bluff overlooking the ocean. Tony headed outside, making sure to close the door noisily and push a lawn chair out of his way with hip, so Duo could hear him coming. As he approached, he noticed that while the boy's face was dry, his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. He passed off the coffee to the teen, then settled down in the other lounge chair.

"Bad night?" he asked after a few minutes of just drinking their coffee.

"Never had a 'good' nightmare," Duo said wryly. "Sorry for waking you."

Tony shook his head. "Wasn't sleeping. Trust me, sleep and I aren't on speaking terms either, Stitch. Wanna talk about it?"

Duo thought for a moment, then shook his head. "This isn't my world, yanno? Like, it just hit me, just now, really sank in. I went through that computer you gave me, looking and stuff, and trying to figure out where things split. Like how in the 1940s in my world, we started working more towards thermal energy and particle acceleration and put colonies in space, but that was over 200 years ago. But the 1940s here were less then 100 years ago, and people use gas and oil, and working towards solar energy and no one is in space. The differences are a bit overwhelming, and I miss my brothers and I don't know what I'm supposed to do next." He let out a frustrated huff, tugging on his bangs as he curled up a bit more.

"You heal," Tony replied. "That's what you do next. You rest and you heal and you get back up on your feet. We'll track down your brothers, get you all reunited, and then figure out how exactly you ended up here in the first place, Aphrodite."

Duo chuckled wetly. "I know that legend. You are not funny."

Tony smiled. "Shut your mouth, I'm goddamned Johnny Carson. Now c'mon." he stood, holding a hand out to Duo. "It's too chilly to sit outside. Let's go inside, start up a movie."

Duo followed Tony inside, and as they relaxed on the couches, one of the windows darkening into a screen, Duo turned to him. "I don't understand you, Tony." 

"What's there to understand? I do what I want." Tony sank down, putting his feet up on the coffee table. When Duo didn't respond, he looked over. The teenager was fiddling with his cup and looking down. "You look me up?"

Duo nodded. "It didn't help. It just made me even more confused. Why are you letting me stay here?"

"You needed help," Tony replied. He paused for a moment to try to put his thoughts in order, tried to imagine how he would describe it to Pepper so that she wouldn't eviscerate him when she inevitably finds out. "You googled me, right? So I'm Iron Man. Trying to save the world one piece at a time is kinda my thing. We don't exactly have a 'dimensionally displaced persons' halfway house set up anywhere. You didn't ask to be here, and you have literally nothing. What kind of shit person would I be, what kind of superhero, if I ignored that, and just sent you on your way."

"I'dda figured something out."

"Probably. But now you don't have to. And not gonna lie, kid, you being here has helped me, too. Reminded me of what I'm fighting for, the kinds of people I'm fighting for. Now shush, talking during Disney movies is treason in this house."

By the time _Lilo & Stitch_ was over, Duo was asleep, curled into the corner of the couch. Tony didn't bother getting up, reaching instead to snag his StarkPad from the coffee table. He had some paperwork he'd been neglecting. 

First things first, he needed to check on the progress his lawyers made concerning the Barton family. Had it just been Clint, no Agent Lady-Barton or mini-agents, he would have written the archer off. It was going to be a while, if ever, he forgot the words in the Raft. Tony could take any amount of crap concerning himself, his habits, personality or history, but Barton had brought Rhodey into it. That was unforgivable in Tony's book. But his wife didn't deserve to have to live like that; unprotected and constantly looking over her shoulder due to her husband's actions. Let Barton go home, to "retire" (until Cap came calling again anyway). Let him answer to his wife for running off in the middle of the night, to stay gone to protect a girl half her age. Let him lay in that particular bed he made. Tony had set his lawyers on the problem the second he heard that though they'd broken out of the Raft, Barton had stuck around. Asked them to fight for him, to get him house arrest. To go home and **stay there**. 

The lawyers had made significant progress, reports to Tony showing that Barton had gone home the day before. Same thing with Scott Lang (who was that guy again?). With Barton's house arrest came the news that the Raft was being closed for sheer amount of human rights violations going on inside. The lawyers had made the argument for inhumane treatment and being held without charges or trial. They were currently shifting actually dangerous criminals to other prisons, reassessing other prisoners' sentences. Another nail in Ross's coffin. As soon as Tony finished getting rid of the guy, Bruce might actually make contact finally. Why couldn't he have just been HYDRA? It would have made it so much easier. Tony closed the reports, satisfied.

The Accords were their own mess. Tony had been working on amendments, ways to protect the 7 billion people on Earth, but not at the expense of the enhanced individuals. The latest round of possible revisions had been looked over and sent back to Tony. He'd actually employed one lawyer to explicitly play the role of Devil's Advocate, to come up with the worst, strongest possible arguments she could _against_ Tony's revisions specifically so that Tony could argue them back, to fix the revisions to cover every hole. What was the Evil Overlord's rule again? Hire a 5 year old as an adviser to poke holes in all your plans? Something like that. Well, Sheena was doing a fabulous job at arguing counterpoint to Tony's work. Tony thought she might be channeling 'What Captain America probably thought the Accords were all about'. 

Tony worked for a bit, marking every note from his lawyer, and reworking each part one at a time. When he and the legal team were satisfied, he would send this set to Pepper, let her rip it apart, and then he and the legal team would start all over again. Eventually, they'd be satisfied, send it to the committee, and let them nay certain points and send it back again. He couldn't think about Roger's reaction, why the other man didn't sign. Tony refused to create a set of rules simply to make one man happy. Steve had attempted to rip the world apart for one man already. Tony would not repeat that behavior. No, these accords were going to be for everyone, to protect who he could. One upon a time, he'd told a group of senators they couldn't separate him from Iron Man. That was all well and good when he was just one man, but now there were more. There were enhanced individuals everywhere. Rumors of a group in upstate New York. Group of scientists out in New York City. A guy haunting the streets of Hell's Kitchen. Peter. People who felt _safer_ now that SHIELDRA was gone. 

Also, what the hell was with New York. If Tony ever became a Super Villain, he's attack Wyoming or Oklahoma or something. Attacking New York was just asking for it. 

Tony looked over at Duo asleep on the couch. The teen had already reminded him of the Winter Soldier, but FRIDAY had reported that in his nightmare, he'd _kicked_ his footboard hard enough to crack the wood. Except the piece he'd cracked was 4-inch thick solid mahogany. Tony was starting to feel like these accords revisions were going to one day pertain to the teenager, too. 

At the end of his patience with the revisions, Tony set them aside to work on the next thing on his pile of responsibilities. He had 4 different private investigators on payroll, as well as having FRIDAY poke at publicly available information, working on building a case against Ross. The notes about the RAFT's closure was helpful, and Tony made a note to get any info on Ross's actual, personal involvement with the prison to add to the file. Ross wasn't enhanced, and Tony was neither a cop nor an attorney, so he couldn't "press charges" against Ross. He could, however, build the case for the investigators, give them a pile of irrefutable evidence to get the actual authorities to put the man away permanently. It was what Tony had wanted to do before, when the Sokovian Accords were first written in all their lopsided glory. Only, he hadn't anticipated having to fight what he believed was his family on them, hadn't expected them to turn their backs without the full story. Reeling after the Ultron Incident, being turned on by family, the case against Ross had fallen to the wayside so Tony could focus on keeping his family and life and goddamned emotional equilibrium together. 

For all the good it did in the end. 

Now though, isolated in California, he could turn his focus to Ross and the Accords. Focus on fixing the problems he wished he'd had the breathing room and support to fix before...everything. Tony added the notes and files about the Raft Closure to the Ross File, then closed the file. There hadn't been any updates yet from his PI's, though one had a report that he was waiting for a callback from an informant on Capitol Hill and he hoped to have good news soon. Duo shifted in his sleep on the other couch and Tony smiled. Not so isolated any more. 

The boring paperwork out of the way, Tony opened the files on Rhodey's exoskeleton. The other man had reported a small hitching in the steps of the right leg, when he lifted his foot higher then 5 inches. He wasn't a Dalek, he needed to be able to go up stairs. Tony made a quick side note to show Duo Dr. Who sometime soon. In the darkened room, Tony let himself get lost in the engineering, in the math and physics of the mechanical braces/leg prosthesis he was designing, lulled by the warmth and the sound of the waves.

* * *

When Duo woke up, he was covered in the throw from the back of the couch, his coffee cup resting safely on the table. A couple feet down, Tony was asleep, head throw back and data pad on his lap. Duo smiled at the image, and getting up, draped the blanket over Tony instead. The older man had mentioned that he wasn't sleeping the night before when Duo woke from his nightmare, and he clearly fell asleep later then Duo did, so who knew how long he'd actually been sleeping. 

In his room, he winced at the sight of the large crack running through the wooden footboard of his bed. In his nightmare last night, he'd kicked it pretty hard. He'd have to find a way to pay Tony back for that. Heero was the strongest of the 5 of them, having been augmented from a much younger age then the rest of them, but Duo'd started at 12, and the others much not long after. They were all pretty strong, capable of more then the average person back in the Earthsphere, the augments increasing already existing traits like Trowa's balance or Wufei's speed. 

Duo's thoughts turned to his brothers. He was running out of ideas on how to get a hold of them. Their usual message drop locations didn't exist here, and at this point, Duo was just hitting up random website, and leaving cryptic spam messages in comment boxes and on forums. Glancing over at his data pad on the desk, he noticed it was flashing with an alert. 

"Boss has finally configured the facial recognition program algorithms to accept drawings and sketches and that you would want to start a facial recognition search today or tomorrow." FRIDAY's voice was a soothing lilt above him. "He wasn't sure if you would be able to draw them, so he sent you a digital facial composite drawing program. There is an accompanying book with 1500 facial features of various ethnicities for you to chose from. Once you have a satisfactory image, I can use it to start the facial recognition algorithms."

"Thanks, Friday." he said softly. Settling onto his bed, he got to work. He had absolutely no artistic ability, but he could use a book to put an image of his brother together like a jigsaw puzzle.

\--------

A couple hours later, Duo's stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. Since his image of Quatre was about half finished, he set it aside to instead go looking for Tony. Tony had been out in his garage-workshop the day before, and Duo didn't know if he'd eaten dinner or at all today, so it might be a good idea to see if his host wanted some food. Duo was a pretty lousy cook, not quite understanding how the plethora of ingredients went best together, but he could make a passable sandwich. 

Tony was on the couch in the living sp- livingroom. Tony called it the livingroom, not living space, and Duo needed to remember to use it. He was staring down blankly at something in his hand, one hand up and pressing on his chest. As Duo neared, he could hear that Tony's breath was labored. 

"Tony?" He called out. "Are you ok?"

Tony dropped the paper he had been holding, turning and blinking over at Duo. His mind must have been a million miles away. Duo came over and sat down on the coffee table in front of him. He pushed the small flip-style comm device he'd almost sat on back, to the other side of the table, not missing the way Tony's eyes tracked it. His new friend had been taking care of him for the last few days, maybe it was Duo's chance to return even part of the favor. 

"You, uh, kinda looked like you were having a heart attack. If you don't verbally respond, I'm going to have FRIDAY call medics."

"God, no kid, don't call 911. Fri-girl, no 911, ok? Shit. I didn't mean to freak you out. It was just phantom pain from a chest injury I got a little while ago. I got a letter from someone today and it took me back, that's all." He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and Duo didn't miss the shaking in it. 

"Seems like a shitty kind of letter, if it gave you trauma flashbacks." he commented.

"It was from a shitty kind of friend," Tony replied with a wry half-smile.

Duo nodded decisively. He couldn't help Tony deal with shitty kinds of friends, but he could show Tony the good kind. "Right. Well, I'm taking this letter and putting it in the kitchen. Then I'mma grab your tablet and mine, and we're gonna order dinner and work from the couch while a cartoon vid plays in the background. Something fluffy. We're gonna have a relaxing night, and pray the next 24 hours aren't as crappy for either one of us as the last 24 have been."

Tony smiled. "We are, are we?"

"Yes." Duo reached down and scooped the paper up off the floor, dropping it into a box that was sitting on the couch next to Tony, along with the comm device. "So pick your favorite vid, and what you want for dinner. You had a project you were working on yesterday and I need to get my sketches done."

Duo wasn't sure what was in this letter, but Tony didn't protest Duo walking away with it, so there was that. But if Duo ever met the person who could send Tony into an anxiety attack just by writing to him, Duo was going to light them on fire.


	5. Chapter 4

The rainstorm hit about halfway through Trowa's second week in this odd new world he seemed to have found himself in. Most of the relief workers were staying inside their tents or the certified stable buildings, taking advantage of the downtime to do paperwork. Reports said the rain shouldn't last more then a day or two, but it was currently coming down sideways. Supervisors said they'd do more harm then good going out into it. Trowa didn't have a choice but to go out. Milo had to go to the bathroom. Luckily the small black and brown mutt, just a largish puppy really, didn't seem to mind going out into the rain if he had to. 

Trowa had come to terms with not being dead when he'd expected to be, but on the day after his arrival, after waking up in a random alleyway, he'd returned to the same place, desperate and confused, to look for his brothers. He'd found Milo instead. He'd given the dog some of the already scarce food he had, and ended up with a loyal shadow, one that had no problem curling around Trowa in the evacuee tent.

As days had passed, Trowa had opted to deal with them sensibly. His brothers would find him, when the time came. While he was here, he might as well help. It would keep him busy for the time being. And after all, there was no end to the destruction in Novi Grad. According to the new reports Trowa had read in the quiet evenings, a megalomaniacal robot had lifted the entire city up in order to drop it from space and eradicate all life on the planet. He'd been stopped, but the city had still fallen, and thousands had still died. There were relief workers, and life aid from all over the world, helping with recovery and clean up. 

So instead of going looking for his brothers, he'd opted to stay in place, and wait until he heard back, heard a reply to one of the messages he'd left on various message boards all over the internet. And in Novi Grad, there was a plethora of displaced people, crowds of unhappy, dirty victims of a catastrophic event to hide among. Easy enough to integrate himself amongst the evacuees and workers. Trowa had two hands and plenty of time while he waited, so he'd decided to help out; clear the destruction during the day, read newspapers and historical reports by night. 

The Sokovian newspapers were all in Sokovic, the bastardized version of Romanian that the Sokovian people around him seemed to speak. Luckily plenty of people spoke English, as well as a strange amount of French, which he was passable at, and a handful of other assorted languages. Thankfully the relief volunteers brought with them their own books and newspapers and reports, ostensibly for themselves, but also for Trowa to "borrow". No Common though, which might have worried him, had it not been made abundantly clear that this was not his world. His world had 16 meter tall mecha piloted by teenagers, and not killer robots after all. Some of the pictures he'd seen showed what had fought off the killer robot attack - a man in an shrunken down version of a Gundam, a man with a red cape and a hammer that shot lightning, a woman with red magic of some sort. The people called them superheroes. 

Fantastic.

Trowa glanced down at Milo, curled up on the cot at his side, as he looked out of the tent he was staying in at the pouring rain. While he wasn't prone to pensive or anxious mannerisms, running his hand over and over the piece of gundanium he wore on a cord around his neck was soothing. It was his connection to his brothers, to Duo; a piece of Deathscythe Duo had kept after the Gundams had been sent into the sun, and the world turned on them as a whole. Duo had given it to him before he'd disappeared, before he'd been captured. It was a physical symbol of the potential between them, a chance for a brighter future Trowa had almost had taken from him by the very people he'd fought to protect. Lost in thought, he startled at a tug on the sleeve of his shirt, and Milo popped up alertly. A young girl, wearing a colorful headscarf and mud streaked on her face asked him something in Sokovic, and he shook his head, replying in English that he didn't understand her. 

"She's asking if you've had lunch." A voice, tinted with a British accent, called out. "She said her and her mother are making soup and wanted to know if you would like to dine with them."

Trowa turned to look at the speaker. It was a tall man, thin and angular, with a head of dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes. There was something oddly discomfiting about the directness of his stare, but after a moment, Trowa shrugged it off. This whole damn _world_ was discomfiting to him. What was one more person's weirdness in the grand scope of things. 

"I don't know how to tell her 'no thank you'." He replied finally. 

The man paused in thought, then turned to the little girl. "Nu, mulțumesc. El a mâncat deja."

The girl replied once more, skipped over to pet Milo briefly, and then rushed back down the long tent to where her family was waiting. Trowa had a distinct feeling that part of the invitation was merely an excuse to pet the puppy. Trowa smiled and ran his hand over the dog's fuzzy head, then turned back to his new translating friend.

"I apologize if I intruded. It is common around here to see people who cannot understand each other. It has become habit to translate."

Trowa snorted. "It was either that or I just stared at her stupidly, or possibly asked where the bathroom was, which is about all I can manage in the language." 

The man looked at him in curiosity. "You do not speak the language, yet you've been housed with the evacuee groups. Are you not a resident of the city?"

That, that was a bit nosy. Trowa tilted his head, letting his hair fall over half his face. With his visible eye, he stared blankly at the man, but did not answer. After a moment, he turned back to the rain, tilting his face into the small bit of wind coming into the tent.

"My apologies," the man said after the quiet dragged on for a few minutes. "That was intrusive. I have been searching for answers here, and everyone seems to have a story. It did not occur to me that some might not wish to share theirs."

There was something about the man, something more then the small disconcerting feeling he evoked. Something about the economy of his words and the slightly stiff way he carried himself. Trowa couldn't put a finger on it though, he wasn't really a people person. 

They sat in companionable silence, strangers and foreigners in a devastated land, watching as the rain pounded down mere feet away.

* * *

Trowa saw the man the day after the next, helping clear rubble from what was once a home. He watched quietly, working on his own section, as the man cleared bits of construction, and set aside what seemed like pieces of a family's life. Every once in a while, he'd pause, and stare at something he'd uncovered, before he put it on the same pile and keep working. Around noon, as the group in their sector paused for the lunch, Trowa joined him sitting on the broken pieces of what was formerly a structural wall, passing the break in peaceful silence.

As they worked late into the afternoon, Trowa came across one of the things that made this world so different from his own. Shifting aside debris, he uncovered parts of what was once one of the robots that attacked the city. There was protocol when the pieces were found, a group called 'The Accord Commission' was taking all parts for storage and study. Trowa held the robotic head, just looking at it. It wasn't like the robots he was used to, not even bring up the vast size difference. But for these things to have created such destruction, they might as well have been cut from the same cloth. Or piece of metal, as it were. 

The man paused beside him, just looking down at it as well. "They were part of a collective, a hive mind bent on creating true world peace."

"I read that they were trying to destroy all humanity by killing everyone on the planet with this stunt." Trowa replied. He ran a finger over the faceplate.

"Yes, well, their reasoning was faulty. If there were no more humans, then humans could not continue to kill one another."

"Ultimate death as a form of ultimate peace is never the answer." It was OZ's reasoning, all over again. Start a war to remind people of the horrors of it, so that they would never wage war again.

"It was not a good answer, no. But it was the only answer they knew." He reached down and picked up another broken part from the hole Trowa had found, bringing out the mangled remains of another head. "Ultron's beginnings were pure, though they became tainted by a force beyond this planet."

Trowa just looked at the man. It was almost poetic, the way he was looking at the head, _a skull_ a little voice in his head whispered.

"You seem to have all the answers about the killer robots, but you're still here searching." The man looked over at him, head tilted inquisitively. "You don't seem like any of the other relief workers, trying to do a good deed, or help put a city back together. You're looking for something, instead."

The man gave him his usual uncanny stare. "There was a woman, not long ago. She professed to love me, though we only knew one another a short amount of time. Not long after, she attacked me in an effort go get to my father. I wished to understand more of her and this was once her home. I am looking for her truth. Why she did what she did, despite declarations of love."

Trowa resisted the urge to snort. "The worst thing about betrayals is that they don't come from an enemy."

"No," the other man replied softly. "Thus the reason for trying to find my answers here."

Trowa rocked up to his feet, carrying the head. "C'mon. Let's get these over to the Commission, and let them mark the sector for more searching." He turned to walk towards the base camp, the man coming up beside him, holding on to his own horrific prize. "I'm Trowa, by the way."

"I am called Vision."

Trowa gave him a half smile. "'Called'? Not 'named'?"

Vision smiled. "My father is good at many things, but despite his assertions, naming this is not one of them. I supposed I can say 'named' now, as I've taken it for my own."

Trowa looked up at the still grey sky. "Yeah, I know a little something about naming yourself."

* * *

Trowa and Vision weren't allowed to return to the house where they'd been working after they turned in the Iron Legion pieces. The Commission came in, roped the entire quadrant off and shoo'd off the relief workers still working there. Trowa was quite happy to let them, and after pausing to call Milo from where the dog had spent the morning playing with a group of evacuee children, moved to another section of the city. 

They were warned to be extra careful in this section, as cleanup efforts had revealed a series of tunnels under the city. No one was quite sure how deep they went, but for the moment, they were allowed in to help clear rubble, admonished that _anything_ in this sector out of the ordinary was to be reported as soon as it was found. Working in amicable silence, the pair started clearing pieces of concrete and structures, Milo weaving in and out of the piles in some sort of canine game.

Milo was actually the one to discover the odd symbol. Vision must have noticed him digging at something, and when Trowa looked over, he saw the other man pausing as he lifted a piece of rebar-riddled concrete from it's resting place. Some sort of emblem was affixed hunk of rock; a weird octopus looking thing, evil and black. 

"HYDRA," Vision commented as he saw Trowa watching. "A vile offshoot of the Nazi party, one that almost everyone wishes would just stay dead."

"Almost everyone? You included?"

"Very much so." Vision replied. He seemed reluctant to be near the metal symbol, embedded deeply in the concrete as if it had been placed when the concrete was poured.

Trowa thought a moment. "Your woman, she connected to this HYDRA?"

Vision didn't say anything, just stared at the symbol. Then he set the chunk of rubble to the side of the pile they'd been making. 

"I wish she had not been." he said finally. "It would seem we must once more let the supervisor know what we have found, so that they can alert the Committee. I feel that we'll be moved to a new sector soon." He turned a wry smile on Trowa. "You're turning out to be something of a magnet for finding strange things, my friend."

* * *

Trowa trusted no one but his dog in this weird new world, but now Vision was starting to work him way onto the short list. Something about the man's naked honesty and blunt manner. Trowa had pilfered a relief supervisor's tablet as the man slept, and attempted to research this 'HYDRA' Vision mentioned. Unfortunately, either the supervisor didn't have the proper clearance, or there was simply no information to be had, as Trowa had been able to find much beyond it's historical connection to this 'Nazi Party'. He had read up on them instead, unhappy at the parallels he was able to see to the Alliance. True, the Alliance had never been quite as fanatical, but still, the connections existed. 

Unable to rest, he got up from his cot and left the tent. He'd return the tablet and seek out Vision instead. Vision was staying in another tent, one for the relief workers, and Trowa had a feeling that despite the hour, the other man would be awake. 

He was correct in his assumption. As he crossed the camp to the tent where Vision was staying, Milo a quiet but enthusiastic shadow at his side, he could see the man was awake. He appeared to be sitting at a small table, playing a solo game of chess by the soft light of an electric lantern. Trowa had a visceral reminder of the last time he'd played chess just to kill the time, and for one long minute, missed his brothers so much it stole his breath. Taking a quiet moment, he stood straight, squared his shoulders and pressed onward. 

Vision looked up as he entered the tent, smiling when Milo beelined for him and jumped up on for affection. As he pet the small dog, he gestured for Trowa to take the seat on the other side of the small table. "Do you play?"

Trowa shook his head, though he answered in the positive. "I know the rules, but it's been a long time since I've just sat down and played. Even longer since I've done anything for the sheer enjoyment of it." He reached out to reset the light pieces when Vision started doing the same to the dark ones. Under Trowa's chair, Milo flopped down to go back to sleep.

"I find the best challenge of the game is in the unpredictability of your opponents. Humans may memorize hundreds and thousands of combinations to advance, and must endeavor to change their plans on the fly based simply on the previous move of the other player."

It was like something clicked in the Trowa's brain, a handful of innocuous comments, some reactions, combination of body language and verbal. Vision wasn't human. The woman whose past he was seeking was, but whatever he was, he stood apart from her. Trowa didn't know _what_ he was, but he'd bet the necklace he wore, 100% human wasn't it. He'd shown this pieces of himself to Trowa, given him the answer, however inadvertent. He wondered if this HYDRA had created Vision somehow, but brushed it off. Vision had spoken with affection for a 'father' and sad-ish anger about 'HYDRA'. Not a feeling of regret that would come of having to destroy his progenitors. Whatever Vision's secret was, it wasn't Trowa's place to reveal it. What had Vision said when they met? Everyone had their stories, not everyone wanted to share them?

Trowa reached out a pushed a pawn forward on the board. 

"I was separated from my brothers. I kinda landed here in Sokovia, and they aren't responding to any of my messages, but the network we used to use isn't there anymore, so I'm not even sure they're getting the messages. So I'm waiting here, until I get word from them that they're safe and where they are so I can go to them.

"The people here, they didn't ask for this. Didn't ask for killer robots to try to turn their home into a meteor. So while I wait to see if I'm the sole survivor, I'm going to help them. It's the least I can do."

Vision moved a piece counterpoint to Trowa's opening move. "A noble goal."

Trowa shook his head. "Not really. Trying to make up for my past. I can't help the people I hurt before. But I can help these ones, and just maybe it'll make up for something."

In the quiet of the tent, surrounded by survivors and people unwilling to give up, playing a companionable game, Trowa thought for the first time since he'd arrived: he'd be ok. It would be awful if he was the only one here, forever separated by an insurmountable distance from his family, devastated if they didn't survive. But with Milo, with Vision, helping these people that needed help, he was going to be ok.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the lateness, this should have been out last Friday, or at the lastest last Monday. But work's about to push a major update, and I'm up to my eyejellies in regression tests. Enjoy a longer then usual amount of Domestic Fluff to make up for it.

### Chapter 5

"Tony." Something was poking him in the shoulder. Tony huffed, not wanting to wake up, and pulled his pillow out from under his head to cover his face with instead. 

"G'way," he mumbled.

"No can do. Where are your screwdrivers?" 

Tony would not be swayed from the grips of Morpheus. Lifting a hand, he sort of gestured towards the other end of the room. "Vodka's in the cabinet. Dunno if we have orange juice."

There was a moment of blessed silence, then Duo started snickering. "Not that kind, Tony. I need a set of tools. Specifically, a screwdriver set." 

A whatforwhatnow? Duo was tugging on the pillow, lifting it enough to let light in underneath and into Tony's eyes. Ugh, sunlight. Tony looked up at him blearily. "A what?"

"Your screwdriver set. I need a standard phillips or freason, as well a set of hex keys."

"I don't know- FRIDAY, did I have screwdrivers last night? Of either variety?" 

"You did not have any alcoholic beverages last night, Boss. However, your tools are currently under the couch you were sleeping on." Tony was starting to get a bad feeling about why he had his screwdrivers under the couch, but he rolled over, mentally cursing the universe for making him get older and thus more difficult to just flop over on a couch these days. Scrounging under the couch, he pulled out the small red tool box he was storing his screwdrivers in. 

"Huh. Guess I did have them."

With a quick 'thanks', Duo took them and headed towards the kitchen. Tony gave up on sleep after a moment, and drug himself upright. There was an empty coffee cup on the table, and he was still wearing yesterday's clothes, not quite remembering when he'd come down from the garage and passed out in the living room. Then, as higher reasoning returned, he wondered just why he'd needed the screwdrivers the night before, and why Duo wanted them now. Snagging his coffee cup, he headed for the kitchen.

Duo had pulled himself up to sit cross-legged on the island counter, the tool set next to his knee. In front of him, was the various and sundries pieces of what looked like the the microwave. Tony glanced over. Yep, that was once the microwave. Thankfully, the coffee machine had appeared to have been spared the carnage. Tony looped around the island, and towards the blessed, blessed caffeine. 

"what're you doing?" he asked, as he turned back.

"Putting the microwave back together." The 'duh' was unspoken, but there.

"Why did you take it apart?"

"I didn't, you did. And I wanted a breakfast burrito, but there was no microwave, just a microwave parts." He seemed perfectly content right where he was, deftly securing the magnetron to the sidewall. A plate of poptarts was next to him, opposite the toolbox. "Besides, you did all the hard work. I didn't even have to discharge the transistor. This is just putting it back together."

"I can't honestly remember why I did that, but it must have been important," Tony replied, debating the merits to toasting his own poptarts versus pretending to eat healthy and actually try to cook something. "You're...really good at that."

Duo glanced up at him through his bangs. "Had to be. Remember those space battles I mentioned when I first got here? Well, they were fought in mecha, giant-ass mechanical robots. Think your Iron Man suit, right? Now make it 16 or 17 meters tall. We were on our own for maintenance. Unless you had a mechanic your really, really trusted, like Q's people, you did all your own work on it. Personally though, I just like engineering."

This was part of the story Tony had been letting Duo tell him at his own pace. "Why, exactly, did you have your own giant death robot?"

Duo sigh, and set down the transistor he was messing with. "That...is a bit more complicated. Here, ya'll have the UN, right? Well we had the UN cranked up to max. We'd taken the idea of the UN and ran with it willy-nilly. Instead of a unifying body of general oversight, the EarthSphere sorta went and well, squished all the countries together into the UESA. United EarthSphere Alliance. But about 200 years before that, we went and put colonies up in space, at the 5 Earth-Moon Lagrangian points. L1 through L5. Super awesome job at naming them, I know. So like, the UESA had an army, right? Dunno what for, since one unified banner should have meant the end of fighting. 

"Except the colonies were like 'uhh, we're not on the EarthSphere, we want nadda to do with that UESA nonsense'. And OZ, the UESA's army was all 'shut up and fall in line or we'll shoot you'. And OZ, they had giant death robots of their own. So a group from the colonies stole the plans, and made their own versions. Bigger, better, faster, stronger, etc. One for each colony."

Tony felt something akin to horror, though he struggled not to show it. "And then trained 5 young kids to pilot them."

Duo looked down at his hands, one calm and steady, the other tightly gripping the screwdriver. "And then they trained 5 kids to pilot them."

Tony didn't say anything for a moment, searching for the words to both be unoffensive, but show how serious he was about it. "You know... that's not right, right? Sending kids to war."

"I'm starting to get that, I really am. I mean, it was all we ever really knew. War was brewing before any of us were even born, I mean, it took 10 years just to build the Gundams. I was taking care of myself, having to grow up far before my time, when kids my age were worried about making friends at school. 'Ro, he started even earlier. But since I've been reading this week, lookin' at stuff that separates Here from the Other Place, I did, what'd you call it, Miss Friday?"

"Falling down a rabbit hole, mini-Boss!" The AI replied cheerfully. Duo smiled ruefully.

"Yeah, that. She says there's a story about where that phrase came from, but I've been too busy to read it. But anyway, I was reading, about the wars Here and what not, and what makes a civil war vs a world war, and I found articles about Uganda and Ethiopia and child soldiers out there. And it's, yeah, it's not right. But it's all we had. No one else could do what we did. Like, there were colonist rebels, but they were just small, homegrown terrorist groups, not capable of taking down a space-faring army of giant death robots. The Other Place...was pretty fucked up."

Tony didn't comment about his use of 'Here' for the world he was in now and 'Other Place' for his homeworld. It showed definite connotations that he knew Duo wouldn't be ready to talk about, probably until he found his brothers. But in his gut, Tony was starting to realize, even if the teen hadn't consciously yet, Duo wasn't keen on going back.

"I can promise you here, Nemo, you won't have to fight if you don't want to. You can just be a kid again, won't have to pick up a gun ever."

Duo smiled at him. "How's about a wrench, would that be chill?" He waved the screwdriver at Tony, and picked up the microwave backframe. It was a clear end of the more serious portion of the conversation. 

Tony polished off the last of the coffee in his mug, then grabbed Duo's off the counter to refill them both from the pot. Before he could comment on the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver, FRIDAY interrupted the conversation. 

"Boss, you have a visitor!"

Tony paused. "A visitor, Fri? How's that what now? No one's authorized to be on the property."

"Except, me, right Tony?"

* * *

It had been a long few months for Pepper Potts. 

She'd had to watch as Tony, her oldest and dearest friend, struggled through his PTSD and anxiety, trying not to show either weakness to the world at large. She'd been forced to standby as esteem and goodwill of the Avengers had slowly soured towards Tony, as they eventually ceased even pretending to treat him like a teammate. Earth's Mightiest Heroes, indeed. Then she couldn't ignore the distance and heartache anymore, and while it was, as usual, difficult to pin Tony down for a talk about _feelings_ , she had eventually, allowing for her and Tony to finally acknowledge the growing distance between them. And then it was just a series of hard hits, one right after another. 

First came Ultron, and the emotional upheaval surrounding that particular "incident" prevented either one of them from doing much wallowing concerning their breakup. Once more, Pepper was powerless to do more for Tony then be there by his side, to stand up for him as he dealt with the aftermath of one of his beloved creations be essentially _possessed_ by a sentience from beyond the stars. The death of JARVIS, who'd been there as long as she'd known Tony, was just as hard on her; the existence of Vision did little to quell this pain. Then Steven Grant Rogers had the absolute _gall_ to add that woman to the Avengers, a team that was housed, supplied and otherwise financially backed by Tony personally.

It was the writing on the wall, to be frank, though no one could read the message. The support people had given to Steve as Captain America had gone to his head, giving him the idea that he was able to make unilateral decisions "for the greater good". Case in point: let's dump the entirety of the SHIELDRA files on the internet. The magnitude of that particular incident still took Pepper's breath away when she thought about it. Steve and Natasha should be very very thankful they weren't anywhere near her when she found out about it: she'd been practicing channeling Extremis since Tony had counteracted the whole 'randomly explode' problem. 

Stark Industries had subsidiaries that were government contracting companies. The company as a whole wasn't limited to government contracts, but Stark Weapons, Stark Communications, and now Stark BioMed all had government accounts. Pepper herself had a Top Secret security clearance with a Sensitive Compartmented Information sub-clause. She had to, as CEO of Stark Industries. She had a pretty good idea of what the US government alone was up to, let alone the various SHIELD agents stationed worldwide. If someone had known the truth about Stane, and decided to dump all of Stark Industries files on the internet, the damage would have been in the billions. Tech and blueprints, gone. People connected to contracts, "removed". 

SHIELD may have been infiltrated by HYDRA, and a good chunk of what they were up to may have crossed that line, but not all of it was bad. Not all of it's agents were bad. To make the argument that ALL of the agents were evil because they'd been painted with the same brush as HYDRA meant that that included Natasha, and Clint. Instead, they just went "Uh-huh, I mean everyone BUT ME." And put every single SHIELD agent out there in danger. Tony told her after, when he struggled to clean up after the info dump, that 287 agents and family members were confirmed dead, with another 142 missing. 

The blood of 429 lost lives was now on Steve and Natasha's hands. And unlike Tony, who realized how much was on his own, and struggled to atone for it, the pair had shrugged it of and said "for the greater good". 

It was honestly unsurprising later, when the Sokovia Accords were presented and the Avengers reacted the way they did. Pepper wished she could say otherwise, but she was a cynic at heart. Vision and Tony and Rhodey (and that little boy they brought along, don't think Pepper didn't ream Tony for that decision) had gone to Germany to try to corral the situation, and Rhodey had come back on a stretcher. Vision had been horrified by his own culpability in the incident, and had hovered over Rhodey before ultimately fleeing. Very much like Tony. Tony on the other hand...

Tony had gone to Siberia. The less said about his state when he came back, the better. Pepper remembered getting a terse call from Vision, asking her to contact Dr. Cho and see if Project JustHuman was good to go early. She hadn't asked what the project was, recognizing Tony's inability to name things in the title, and had just done as asked. The aftermath was a Tony who was physically healed in a matter of weeks, but emotionally still reeling. He'd stuck around for another two weeks, long enough to fabricate Rhodey's exoskeleton, version 1, before he took off. 

So Pepper wasn't sure what she expected when she came out here to Tony's new Malibu mansion. The house, of course, she knew what to expect with that. She'd helped him pick it out, after all. Tony's mindset when he withdrew to here, assuring her and Rhodey that he was ok (which was Tony-speak for 'hide and lick his wounds in peace') was equally established. For the first two weeks, it went as predicted; he'd sent her various things: rambling emails, notes for Rhodey's exoskeleton, requests to borrow and SI lawyer or two for Accords-based legal dancing, and otherwise touched bases almost daily with her or Rhodey. 

Except, then he'd stopped. She's been gearing up to start the dreaded conversation with him about what he'd been thinking concerning Clint Barton, but he'd gone quiet. For the last 8 days he'd sent and said nothing, despite her electronic prodding. FRIDAY had reassured her that 'Boss was physically fit, interacting with people and eating regular meals', but Pepper had still worried. Something had caught his attention, to the detriment of all else. 

Pepper hadn't thought twice about flying out here to California, to check on him personally. She hadn't mentioned the visit to him or FRIDAY, had spoken with Happy on the drive home from work the day before she flew out, requested that the SI pilot only file the flight plans the day before. She knew something had Tony's full attention, but she hadn't wanted to tip him off until she arrived. Too many instances of him "needing" to fly to a random location for "super important" work exactly when she needed to speak with him clouded her memory. 

And now she's arrived, using her gate code to get gain access, and found him in the kitchen, talking to a kid sitting on the counter and dismantling a kitchen appliance.

* * *

The play of emotions across Tony's face was somewhat comical. "Pepper!" he said, in a delightedly surprised kind of way. Then, a heartbeat later, "Pepper," except this was colored with confused skepticism. 

Part of her would never not delight in occasionally throwing him off his game. 

The boy on the counter, still staring at her in a wary, suspicious kind of way, slowly put down the screwdriver. "I'd offer you a breakfast burrito, but," he waved a hand over the mess on the counter in front of him as if in explanation. In Tony's house, it kind of was. 

"Thank you for the offer," she replied. "I'm not actually a fan of breakfast burritos, so don't feel too bad."

The boy gave her something of a half smile, and Tony came around from where he'd poured yet another cup of coffee, handing it to Pepper. 

"Pepper, this is Duo. Duo, the lovely and esteemed Pepper Potts." He gestured between them. Pepper suppressed a smile. She's clearly knocked him for a loop by showing up here, and it was obvious that he'd just woken up on top of everything else.

Duo blinked at her, and if she wasn't used to the look of faux-innocence on Tony's face occasionally, she might have believed what he was about to say. "Your parents named you after something they saw on the spice shelf? How mad were they?"

"They named me Virginia. HE," she pointed at Tony, who put up his hands as if to ward of her words. "named me Pepper. You'd have to ask him why."

They both looked over at Tony, who just tilted his head and stuck his nose in the air as if looking down on them. "My ways are vast and mysterious," he said grandly. "Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Pepper! You're in California! Why are you in California?"

"You sent a lawyer to get house arrest for Clint Barton, Tony?"

Tony froze. "Oh," was all he said. It was probably the last thing he'd expected her to lead with.

"Yes, 'Oh'," she replied. "Although I am curious about what's going on here. I didn't realize you'd opened your home to someone." There was censure in her voice, arguing what she couldn't; that this boy wasn't vetted, that he could be anyone, that Tony had been hurt enough.

Tony waved it all off though, the spoken and unspoken. "I was taking a walk, and he popped out of the ocean in front of me, like a daisy! I wasn't just going to leave him there on the beach, Pep. I'm trying to do the right thing, I'll leave the selfish things for Captain I'm-Right."

Duo frowned and tilted his head, making no effort to interject in the conversation thus far. Then he shrugged and in a twisty move that Pepper envied, slipped off the counter. He was shorter then she expected. His economy of motion rather reminded her of the SHIELD agents, an disquieting thought.

"Daisies don't grown in the ocean, unless they do here, which would be weird, so I'm going to assume that was a reference I don't know yet," he said as he quickly arranged the tools and parts on the counter into a more coherent mess. "You two clearly have shenanigans to discuss. I'm going to track down whatever that was-."

"It's a Disney movie called 'Mulan'." FRIDAY interrupted helpfully. 

"Thanks Fri-doll." Duo smiled. "'Mulan' then. I'm going to go watch 'Mulan' in my room, because I have feeling Tony's going to call me various names from it shortly. You guys discuss at each other."

Then he sidled down the hallway, his footsteps almost silent. It would seem Tony hadn't just invited someone random into his home. Apparently he was starting the next generation of the Home for Wayward Superheroes. She turned back to face him.

"Yes, Tony. Let's 'discuss'."


	7. Chapter 6

### Chapter 6

Quatre smiled as he set a plate of sandwiches down on an uncluttered side of a workstation. In the two weeks since he'd arrived in this new world, one of the first things he'd discovered was about his two new companions was that they had atrocious eating habits. 

The brilliant Jane Foster, determined to discover the secrets of the stars, was habitually single-minded in her work, often to the detriment of other things. Such as remembering to eat. Darcy Lewis was busy learning how to save the world one cause at a time. When she wasn't in the workspace, reminding Jane that she was a human that needed human social interactions, she was typically off talking to people, running all over the length and breadth of London, and just momentarily pausing to grab something quick from a cafe before rushing off again. 

The pair reminded Quatre of the friendship between Heero and Duo, to be honest, and it made him miss his brothers all the more. 

Two weeks prior, Quatre had felt the horror suddenly suffusing Heero as they'd talked, heard what had caught his brother's attention, and braced himself for impact. He'd closed his eyes against the explosion, expecting instant death, and then opened them again when he realized he was hearing...nothing. Well, not quite nothing. There was the sound of a keyboard that suddenly ceased, and a news vid playing in the background. The chime of an alert on a comm unit. There was a pair of women staring at him in astonishment, and he appeared to be standing in a large office space, crossed with a laboratory of some sort.  
_  
"Duuuuude," one of the women breathed out softly. "I'd ask if you were Asguardian, but there was no light show."_

_"Darcy!" hissed the other, standing up from her computer. She'd come over to him then, her curiosity and alarm battering at Quatre's senses. "Um, hi. Hello. I'm Jane. Where did you come from?"_

_"And is anyone else coming, too? I'd like to know if I have to change out of my pajama pants or not," called the other one, Darcy, as she tapped on the comm device she was holding._

_Quatre turned his attention to Jane. She felt calmer now. Odd. "I'm not sure what 'Asguardian' is, and it appears that I'm alone, though I wasn't moments ago. Where am I?"_

_"Fulham, just west of London." Jane had replied. "If this isn't where you meant to be, where were you trying to go?"_

_Quatre snorted. "I didn't try to go anywhere. I expected to be dead, actually. I'm not actually capable of spontaneous teleportation."_

_"Wait wait wait," Darcy sat up from where she'd been reclining on the couch. "What do you mean, dead? Is someone following you? Should we be expecting more visitors? We haven't even gotten out the good china. Do we even have good china, Jane?"_

_Jane closed her eyes against the ramblings of her friend. Quatre laughed. Darcy felt no fear, and there was no surge of apprehension that usually prefaced being recognized as a Gundam Pilot. "I don't think anyone could follow me, which is a depressing thought that I'm sure will catch up with me once my current predicament sinks in. But as for expecting death, well, that's usually what happens when someone shoots at you. We were being shot at with a beam cannon, I think it hit a generator. I know there was an explosion, and then the next thing I know, I'm here."_

_Curiosity from Jane again. "An explosion? Wait, what's a beam cannon? It hit a generator?"_

_"Slow down, girl, at least let the kid sit." Darcy interrupted her friend, padding over from the couch where she had in fact been lounging in sleep pants. They had cartoon cats on them. She gestured to the couch, and Quatre gratefully sat. He didn't realize how keyed up he still was until that moment. "So, baby interstellar traveler. While the scientist gets her geek on trying to figure this out, talk. Mm'kay? You want something to drink while we talk? Tea? Ale?"_

_As far as introductions go, well, Quatre had had worse. No one was shooting at him, after all. As it turns out, Jane and Darcy were unperturbed by his arrival because it wasn't the first time they'd had someone drop in on them completely unexpected._

_When it suited her, Jane liked to remind Darcy that "at least she didn't hit this one with a car."_  
  
Jane blinked over at him as the plate made a clunk on the tabletop, looking up from where she was reviewing soil sample results. Something about a Bifrost landing spot and dirt composition had had her attention these past days.

"Thanks Quatre! I didn't realize how late it had gotten already." 

Quatre smiled at her. "No worries. I discovered Reddit today, and was placing random posts on various forums when I realized how hungry I was myself."

Sadness from Jane. "No reply yet then, I take it."

Quatre gave her a small, polite smile that did nothing to hide how miserable the thought made him. "No reply. It's...our network is gone, the places we used to post warnings and messages. Its like going in blind. If I chose to post on the NASA forum, but Duo looks at the Business Insider comments section, and Trowa is digging though the robotics enthusiasts websites, well, it does none of us any good."

Quatre took a deep breath. Since Zero, it was hard for him to remain calm, and a struggle to hide the fact. "I know that they're ok. I know that they're alive. And I simply need to have faith that the world will not keep us apart."

After lunch was eaten, Jane returned to her soil samples and Quatre to reading up on recent world events. This place was so strange compared to his home. Superheros instead of Mecha. Supervillains instead of world annihilating weapons. There were a few who had their 'unmasked' life out for public perusal, like Tony Stark, codename Iron Man. Darcy had told him all about Thor and what he was like. 

It fascinated Quatre. What made a person with or without a NewType ability decided to don some form of costume or uniform and stand in the path of the evils of the world? There was a costumed superhero in New York City, one who's real face and name were unknown that went by the name 'Spiderman'. Several of the blogs and reports Quatre had found postulated that the 'man' part was generous and it was in fact a teenager or someone in their early twenties. He'd turned up on the 'superhero scene' approximately a year back, a couple years after the so called Battle for New York, initially taking down petty criminals and small time drug dealers. A month or so ago, he's been spotted all the way in Washington DC, and helped Iron Man take down someone who was selling left over weapons dropped by honest-to-Allah alien weapons. 

NewType abilities were called mutant abilities here. To be honest, Quatre was partial to his world's name. It was _kinder_ somehow, like humans were super rapidly evolving into something new, with powers that were popping up only very very rarely. Mutant sounded wrong, somehow, like the people were deformed offshoots, lesser then 'normals'.

In his world, NewTypes were rumors, spoken of in the dark. Telling anyone you had any form of weird ability or supersensory power was asking to be 'disappeared' by the Alliance. Though Quatre'd had his empathy his entire life, the amount of people he'd told about it were countable on one hand: his brothers and Rashid. He remembered the night he'd told the Maganac Commander. How it had clearly unsettled the man, but how Rashid had done nothing about it, simply cautioned Quatre to not tell anyone else and then never brought it up again. Quatre had been even more careful after that, ceasing even his searching for possible other NewTypes. 

He'd been lonely before that, raised to be his father's heir and the search for NewTypes had been his way of reaching out, trying to connect with someone, anyone. Then the war had happened, and he'd become a pilot, and all of a sudden, he wasn't alone. It was the 5 of them against all odds, and though allegiances had shifted from time to time, in the end, it had boiled down to just the five. It didn't bother him after that, looking for other NewTypes. 

Turns out, he hadn't needed to look very far after all.

After the war, when they thought they were going to get to live normal lives, it had come up in a conversation. Quatre had confessed to the extent which his ability could reach, though he'd mentioned how much about it he still didn't know, and how he'd spent his childhood thinking it was a result of how he was born. It had been Duo who'd reassured him, Duo who'd replied that at least he could use his ability without people becoming the wiser. How he didn't have to be careful of cameras everywhere. Then he'd held his hand out to Quatre, showing the group, and Quatre had been shocked as the edges of it wavered, as if in a desert mirage. Then, shadows began to curl around his wrist like the tail of an particularly affectionate cat. After a moment, Duo clenched his hand, and it all vanished, his palm and fingers back to normal. He'd said that with proper lighting, he could actually blend in with the shadows fully. 

This was why they were his brothers, chosen family over all of his sisters and even the Maganac in the end. Duo had nothing to gain in that moment, had shown his cards for the sole purpose of supporting Quatre. So that if the others had expressed revulsion or fear of what Quatre could do, at least he wasn't alone anymore. And then Trowa, sitting there calmly and drinking a cup of coffee, had literally vanished before their eyes, only to reappear in the same space, still sitting moments later. He seconded Duo's annoyance with cameras, as like Duo, he'd been unable to truly use his own ability during the war. He wasn't actually invisible per-se, simply _unnoticeable_.

It was like something out of a serial story. Group of 5 boys, hand chosen to become Gundam Pilots. What were the odds that all five of them would be NewTypes as well? According to Wufei, who'd been researching the phenomenon, though not through any official channel, it was actually pretty on par for them. They'd all been born in space, had spent the majority of their lives in space, and he thought it might also have something to do with the stresses that came from piloting a mecha. Most other mecha pilots began training at an older age. Not much older in the grand scale of a human life, but on the scale of human early development, those few years could actually mean a great difference. It meant for Wufei, who'd only begun Gundam training at 14, his own NewType ability was merely an enhancement of his already large intellect as well as an ability to tell if anyone was lying and absolutely perfect recall. Duo had an eidetic memory: Wufei could recall perfectly the full text of all the articles on the front page of a newspaper he'd seen 10 years back. On the other hand, for Heero, who'd begun training at 6, his ability to heal any injury meant that the healing was near instantaneous. For example, a broken leg on a normal person would take 6 to 8 weeks to heal; for Heero, it was healed late the next day. Added to his enhanced spatial perception and increased base senses, it made him a much more formidable opponent. 

Not that any of them had really been able to use any of their abilities during the war. Trowa and Duo had been unable to, desperate to keep them hidden, and the other three had used them to limited success. After the war, they'd wanted to just be normal, to be the kids they'd never gotten to be. None of them had any intention of using or abusing what they were capable of, lest they get caught and 'disappeared'. 

In the end, it hadn't mattered. Duo's ability to hide in the shadows had done him no good, when he's been ambushed by the Preventors in a crowded spaceport. When he'd had to choose between his freedom and the possibility of hundreds of passersby getting injured or possibly killed. They'd used Trowa's abilities, as well as Wufei's, to get him out when they found him, but by then the idea of using their NewType abilities to protect their world was repugnant. They would never help a world that had tried over and over again to destroy them. 

But they were here now. Here, in this world, where people and NewTypes _were_ willing to come out of hiding to help the world at large. So it intrigued Quatre, kept him rooted to the comm device Darcy had gotten for him, eager to study more about this world. 

Speaking of Darcy, the comm device chirped in his hand, an alert overlaying his web browser momentarily. She was messaging him, asking him if he wanted to tag along with a couple errands she had to run and that she was willing to bribe him with sweet sweet coffee. 

Quatre smiled and sent back a confirmation. By "errands", he knew she was asking if he'd come be moral support for her and go with her to a government protest march. The march had something to do with the so-called "cover up" of the Dark Elf Invasion three years prior; Quatre had no interest in the motivations behind the protest but would accompany Darcy anyway. It would do him good to take a break from staring at the small screen, and Jane would be grateful if he could keep Darcy from being arrested.

* * *

The march dispersed on Downing Street, and Quatre had urged Darcy not to go all the way to No. 10, reminding her that she promised him a cup of coffee. They soon found themselves ensconced in plush chairs in a homey little coffee shop half way back to the lab in Fulham. 

"You don't actually like politics, do you?" Darcy said as she set her fancy, overpriced cup of coffee on a side table. 

Quatre was settled back in a overstuffed green velvet wing-back chair, his tea on table next to Darcy's coffee. "Not in the slightest," he replied. "My brother might want to go on and be a lawyer one day, but not me. I've already tried to help the world change. Let it burn for all I care now."

"Why all the people watching, then?" Darcy was much more observant than he thought people gave her credit for. He hadn't actually realized that she'd noticed him watching the people IN the march moreso then the people OUTSIDE the crowd.

He paused to give her question actual thought. "Habit, mostly. Aside from the fact that being a soldier during the war meant an increased sense of paranoia that's almost impossible to be rid of, I was also groomed as my father's only son to one day inherit his company and vast holdings. I had to one day hold my own in a boardroom, and being able to read people at a glance was an essential skill."

Darcy frowned, her emotions reading as confusion to Quatre. "Holdup. I thought you said you had brothers."

There were any number of ways Quatre could brush the question off: imply that they shared mothers not fathers, imply cultural differences in using the title 'brother', etc. In the end, he like Darcy. Liked her bluntness, liked her sharp sense of observation. "My brothers are not brothers by blood, but by heart. Comrades-in-arms that I would not only die for, but kill for as well. Biologically, I only have sisters, 29 of them, all older."

"Wait wait wait. _29_ older sisters?? Like, you all share the same two parents? Your mom must have been a trooper."

"I actually only share my father with them. My father was set on having a son, and where I grew up had an abysmally low birth rate, so my sisters are a combination of in-vitro fertilization and surrogacy. Apparently it was customary to implant multiple eggs to ensure one went to term. Me, on the other hand, I was actually an accident. The doctors told my mother she was sterile."

"How on earth did doctors not tell your dad 'Nope! no more kids!' And what does his child support payment look like?" He didn't know what this concept of 'child support payment' entailed, but the very idea of it seemed to enthrall Darcy. Quatre hid his smile behind his coffee cup so she wouldn't think he was laughing at her. 

"Winner Enterprises and Winner Holdings were actually extremely economically profitable," he answered. "We manufactured medical equipment. My father was never short money for any of his children. Affection, perhaps, but not money. However, I am aware I had a rather unconventional upbringing."

"So Baby Interstellar grew up surrounded by a crowd of girls, huh?" Like a tennis ball going back and forth and back and forth, Darcy never quite settled on one emotion for very long. The blond boy had never met anyone who was so open with their emotions, quite so in tune with them. Heero maybe, for all that he refused to show them at time. Darcy felt and felt strongly, and her emotional equilibrium tipped like a boat on an ocean constantly. 

"Not really. My youngest older sister, Iria, is 15 years older then me. She was in college by the time I was walking and talking."

"Quatre, if your youngest older sister is 15 years older then you, what's the age gap between you and the oldest?" she asked. 

Quatre couldn't say he wasn't slightly eager to see what her reaction would be now. "A little over 30 years."

Shock. A thread of awe. Some horror, strangely enough. Possibly at the situation in whole. Quatre was very glad he had no intention _ever_ of telling her Wufei was married at 14, or Heero as raised to be an assassin by his own father, or that neither Duo nor Trowa would never know their own ages or true names. 

Their home was a strange place. And though this place was weird to Quatre by comparison, he was beginning to become enamored of the differences. To simply be Quatre Raberba Winner, son of no one, here. Perhaps when he found his brothers, he might talk them into maybe not trying to get back "home" so quickly. Perhaps they might stick around for a while, if they had the choice. Quatre certainly wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I'm tweaking the Gundam Universe's concept of NewTypes to make it more in line with the MCU. Partly because this chapter insisted on going this direction, but mostly just because I can.


	8. Chapter 7

### Chapter 7

Tony had never given much thought to parenthood, not after the upbringing that he had. Rhodey had made a few cracks about Peter, when Tony was still in New York, but even then, Tony had never regarded himself as anything more then an eccentric uncle to the kid. After this last three weeks, Tony was certain he'd made the correct decision in that regard. He was 100% NOT ready to be any sort of parent.

Duo was bored and getting cabin fever. 

A bored Duo was something to be avoided. It wasn't that he got hyperactive, bouncing destructivly off every wall like that tiny gumball weapon in _Men in Black_ , it was that he got _maliciously_ hyperactive. He found every single button that triggered a person, and poked it, repeatedly, knowing good and well that he was pissing them off. Three days ago, he'd convinced FRIDAY to research 'southern hillbilly accent' and use that for 24 hours straight, no matter what Tony did to correct it. Two days ago, he'd shifted every piece of furniture in the house, excluding the garage, 3 inches to the left and pretended to be worried about Tony's state of mind. Today, he'd dug up every single piece of salacious, cringe-worthy trashy tabloid article he could find from Tony's early 20s and was 'fact-checking' them. By asking Tony for confirmation.

Tony was going to drown him in the ocean and no jury on this planet would convict him. 

While Tony was very, very glad that Duo was growing comfortable with being here, and was starting to reach out and push the envelop to see what the extent of Tony's goodwill was, Tony was at the point where he was debating shipping him to Wakanda for a week or two just for a breather. Let him go bother King KittyCat.

"So wait, did you moon the Prime Minister of Finland in March or May?"

Drown to death.

"April, actually. Which article says March? I'll sue them for slander." 

Duo draped himself across the back of the couch in the garage. Tony'd had it placed in here when he first moved in, but since he'd gained a house guest, he hadn't actually used it. Duo was still prone to nightmares, and Tony preferred to be in the main house at night, just in case. Tony had to blink at the thought. He really was turning into a parent. 

"Toooooooooooonnnnny," Duo whined. "I'm bored. I want to do something, to go out. Can I go somewhere?"

Tony set down the hydraulic mechanism he was tweaking. He hadn't realized Duo actually felt trapped in the house. "You're not a prisoner, you know. You can go anywhere you want. I'd be careful what you did, since you know, no ID card yet and all that. But if you wanna go somewhere, you can. Can borrow a car even. I think if you can pilot a giant space robot, you can probably drive an automatic."

Duo pulled himself upright, then turned and sat down cross-legged on the couch. "Tony. You haven't left since I got here. It's been almost a month. You order in food, and occasionally have FRIDAY recite the news for you, but you're shut-in here. A hermit even. Are you going to grow a long, scraggly beard soon? Start hording newspapers and cats?"

"Ok, what is this nonsense you're spewing? Hording cats? Who have you been talking to?"

Duo grinned. "I might have a small email conversation going with Ms. Potts."

Tony gasped theatrically at Duo. "You...you traitor! How could you betray me like this? In my own home?"

Duo's grin softened to a fond smile, which actually did throw Tony for a bit. Fondness wasn't an emotion most people associated with him. "She's worried about you, Tony. And she's worried about me and my being here. I don't judge her for that, so I answer all her emails. But I'm serious about the shut-in part. I get that bad shit happened just before I got here, and from what I can tell happened pretty much all at once. I know what it means to want some breathing space. You don't gotta go see your friends, they know you're alive with the emails and all. But you shouldn't cut yourself off from people all together."

He looked down at his hands. "I tried that once, tried to keep my brothers safe by running away. It- it didn't work, and getting me back led them right into danger. We were actually regrouping after they rescued me when it all went to hell and I ended up here."

Ugh, feelings talk time. Tony got up from his stool and went to get a wet wipe for the grease on his hands. It gave him a few minutes to marshal his thoughts. "I actually came out here to decide if I wanted to try to keep being an Avenger, on a team of some sort, or if I just wanted to go solo. I can't actually give up _being_ Iron Man, not when people still need help, and I can't keep doing it with the Accords in the state they were in, so in addition to just needing some time and space to physically heal, I came out so I could work on that without being bothered."

Duo didn't look up. "Am I a bother? I'm kinda invading your home here, and pestering you when you wanted solitude."

"What? No!" Tony dropped down on the couch next to Duo and poked him in the shoulder. He thought about what he would have wanted to hear at Duo's age, though the circumstances would never be the same. "If you were a bother, kid, I would have had you on a jet to New York faster then you could have dried that mass of hair of yours. No. You've actually been a good thing, kept me from falling too deep into my own head."

A quiet chime sounded from just above their heads. "Boss, if I may," FRIDAY spoke up. "If part of your hesitance to leave the premises is due to issues with Duo's legal identity, Project Fosterling has just passed all tests."

Tony looked away from Duo's amused, inquisitive glance. "FRIDAY, I don't know who taught you about dramatic timing, but they deserve a raise."

Duo returned Tony's shoulder poke from earlier. "What is 'Project Fosterling' and what does it have to do with me?"

Tony made a gesture, and FRIDAY projected a holographic screen, large enough for both of them to see easily, right in front of the couch. "Well, you can leave you know. I wasn't kidding about that. But there's not much you can do without an ID card and what not. Can't go to Disneyland, can't get pulled over for speeding in the Porsche, can't open a bank account."

Duo snickered. "I like your priorities. You made me a fake ID with this project?"

Tony opened up a file on the screen, and a whole family tree expanded into view, notes attached to every person on it. "A whole identity, actually."

Duo leaned forward with interest, visibly tracking from his name up the tree, and over to where it connected to Tony himself. "Wait, did you make me related to you in this?"

Tony shook his head. "Not exactly, but I did make you a possible, unconfirmed of course, grandson of my uncle's lover. People are going to question the connection, so I had to make it close enough to avoid the 'why are you bothering' questions, but far enough people don't accuse either one of us of faking it and actively trying to pry it apart. I mean, there will be a few who do that anyway, but for the most part, it's just far enough that people will take my word when I said I had it vetted."

Duo didn't look away from the tree, using his finger to trace from Tony, up to Howard Stark, over to another Stark name, and down the names of that branch to his own name with a supposed birthday in 2000, father unknown. "Ok, since this is supposed to be my history, slow down a bit and explain in more detail."

"So during World War 2, my dad went off to fight Nazi Germany. Public knowledge, Project Rebirth, Captain America, yadda yadda. What people don't really remember or think about, since he went on to make Stark Industries and his own name so big, is that his younger brother, my Uncle Edward, was a conscientious objector who moved to Switzerland during the war. He met a guy, Leon Keolliker, and they moved to San Francisco together in 1960. Sometime in 1965, Leon had a daughter, Stella, and in 2000, she supposedly had you. Uncle Edward died in 1984, Uncle Leon in 1999. In 2004, Stella was killed in a drug deal gone wrong, and no one ever found out what happened to her fictional child, because duh, fictional. If anyone asks, when I came here to Malibu, I visited Uncle Edward's grave and found you. Voila!"

As he went over every person on the tree, he pointed them out. The notes on the tree were biographical, and also outlined this so-called 'genealogy'.

Duo grinned at him. "This is really, really in-depth. How much of it is true?"

"That's the beauty. Since most of it, up to your own supposed birth, actually is true, the only weak points are your connection to the family, and I've got that covered. I've got FRIDAY set on keeping an eye on anyone poking around your actual connection to the family, researching you directly or Stella Keolliker. Even an indepth search will just turn up these connections, and making where you were for the last 12 year intentionally vague means that when your brothers eventually turn up, I'll be able to get them legal paperwork just as easily."

"And illegally."

Tony snorted. "And that. Maybe don't mention that part, Aphrodite."

Duo turned back to the fake family tree, enraptured, and after watching him for a moment, Tony glanced away. Duo's StarkPad was on the arm of the couch, still open to the article Duo's found. The image at the top was just before a 19 year old Tony dropped trou on the Vegas strip, inadvertently mooning the Prime Minister. Inadvertent because was actually mooning a stripper who'd dared him. The internet was both a sad and wondrous thing. The fact that this picture still existed was a marvel. It hadn't been digital when the incident happened, but had been uploaded since. People would still do just about anything for candid photos of Tony. There was a thought there, an idea...

Tony could kick himself. 

"We've been going about this wrong," he said slowly, the pieces of a plan coming together in his mind to form a whole image, a possibility. 

Duo looked over at him, though he kept glancing back at the screen like it would disappear if he looked away too long. "You _don't_ want me legally connected to you?"

"No, not that, that's fine. But you have an identity now, a viable one."

Duo leaned forward, propping his elbows on his legs and settling his chin on his hands. "Yeeeeeesss, one you just made? What did this just make you think up? And in small words for the class."

Tony gestured excitedly to the StarkPad. "We've been searching for your brothers, hoping they'll let themselves be seen on a camera and we can catch it. But we can put _you_ in front of a camera now, a paparazzi, let them take a picture without worrying that they're going to have questions about who you are and no answers."

Duo straightened as his mind made the same connections. "If they publish it somewhere, with your fame, one of my brothers will see it." There was a desperate sort of hope on his face. "They'll come to you, to find me. Can we do this? Do you- do you think it would work? Do something really obvious, get the picture on all the gossip rags? Worldwide, maybe?"

Tony sobered a bit, the 'Pepper' voice in his head reminding him of how this could possibly go wrong. How it could put Duo at risk. "If we do, we're tying you to me permanently. It's not something we could put a lid back on. There would be people waiting in bushes and across streets for your picture for the rest of your life."

Duo pointed at the screen. "Doesn't this identity do the same thing?"

"Not fully. The ID would only connect you to me. There would be curiosity seekers yes, but if we didn't do anything to make them _more_ curious, it would eventually taper off. Public declarations, sent up like a flare like this? It would take _years_ to die down."

Duo stared silently at the tree. Tony wasn't going to say anything, wasn't going to try to sway him. If he said no, Tony would come up with another way. The way they'd been trying so far, with FRIDAY running facial recognition and Duo haunting the internet, it wasn't working. Maybe Tony would reach out to Vision, ask for help. 

"I'm not famous for all the wrong reasons here," Duo said finally. "I'm not an internationally wanted war criminal. The UN isn't clamoring for my death. The idea of putting my face out there as a beacon is...terrifying, but the fear comes from reasons that don't exist here. Zech Merquise is not waiting in a dark corner to arrest or subdue me. And this is my brothers we're talking about. I think...I think I want to do this."

If feeling like a parent meant feeling this sort of pride, Tony was starting to be ok with that. "How do you feel about relocating to New York City?"

* * *

James Rhodes wasn't enhanced. Tony had offered him the revised Extremis, the same strain that flowed through Pepper's, and now Tony's own, veins. He'd turned his friend down, despite knowing it would help him walk normally once more, but he didn't want to be enhanced. He'd been at Tony's side for decades, though not quite measuring up to the level of his friend, without needing any sort of boost so far, and he wasn't going to get one now. Maybe in a couple more years, when everything had settled down, he might ask. But Human James Rhodes had walked this path so far, and Human James Rhodes would continue to walk it. 

And he didn't need to be enhanced to know that someone had unlocked his apartment door. 

There hadn't been any sort of tooling marks around the lock, so it hadn't been picked. Someone had used a key. Since only one person Rhodes knew even had a key, he wasn't worried about going inside. And he was right. Sitting on his couch fiddling with his cellphone, wearing ridiculous orange sunglasses and a Nirvana t-shirt, was Tony. As soon as Tony noticed him, he bounced up from the couch like a teenager, a grin on his face and his phone swiftly tucked into a pocket. 

"Rhodey!" Tony exclaimed. Then he hesitated. "How's mark 3 working out for you?"

Rhodes was secure in his masculinity, so he had no problem at all hooking Tony around the back of the neck and pulling him into a hug. It had been a long month with Tony in California, and even then he'd only seen Tony rarely in month between Lepzig-Halle and when he left to 'recuperate'.

Tony startled as usual in the face of physical affection, and then melted into the hug. "The legs are working out great, Tony. How've you been, man?" Rhodey pulled back to really look at Tony. "You're looking better."

Tony gave him a small smile. "I'm doing better. Not good, not yet. Just better."

Tony might be flighty, might brush off Rhodes comments when they tread too close to feelings territory, but he'd never actually lied to Rhodes, a fact the other was glad for in this moment. Tony brightened up suddenly, and turned towards the front door. "Don't get too settled in, Rhodey-bear. I need to show you something, since I'm sure Pepper would murder me if I let you find out from the tabloids. C'mon, let's go."

Rhodes was already turning to follow, since he hadn't gotten settled in at all, but he couldn't just let Tony get away with steamrolling him. That way madness and world-domination lay. "Find out what, Tony? And go where?"

Tony didn't reply as they rode the elevator back down the ground floor, tapping away once more on his phone. One of Tony's cars and drivers, though not Happy, was at curb now, where it hadn't been when Rhodes had arrived home. Tony glanced around, and relaxed when he noticed a teenager standing against the wall of the building. At Tony's look, the boy straightened up. 

"Hi, Colonel Rhodes!" As usual, Peter Parker's cheerful, easygoing demeanor drew a smile to Rhodes' face. 

The boy had visited him, in physical therapy and here at the apartment, a few times since Tony left. Rhodes figured he was missing Tony, who'd left without actually going to say goodbye, only sending a short text that he was going to be out of town for a while and shout if he needed help. Rhodes couldn't be mad at the situation, but he was slightly annoyed at his friend, and had indulged Peter when the boy came around. 

Once they were ensconced in the car, the divider between them and the driver securely up, Tony was all business. 

"I came across something, someone, in California, that I want you to meet. We're going to be parading in front of the paparazzi over the next few days and I don't want to blindside you with it. Since you two are going to be the closest to the situation besides Pepper, who's already aware of what's going on, I need you to know what's going on before an industrious journalist decides the best way to get info is to ask you."

Rhodes gave Tony an unamused look and asked deadpan, "Did you make friends with a supervillain, Tones?"

Tony laughed. "No, no supervillains. But he's going to be around long term, and aside from keeping you in the loop, I want you to meet him under my terms. Sorry for kidnapping you like this."

Peter grinned, bouncing slightly in his seat. "I'm ok with being kidnapped, Mr. Stark. Chores are boring anyway."

* * *

New York was closer to what Duo was used to then Malibu had been. Aside from the whole, never-left-Malibu-house thing, New York City was large, and constantly busy. He and Tony had arrived a couple hours ago, after rushing around and packing up the Malibu house and then flying across the country in one of Tony's jets. Here in New York, Tony had brought them to his tower, once Stark Tower, then Avengers Tower, and now back to Stark Tower. The penthouse floor was a fancy shared den and communal areas, like the Malibu house's living room, game room, kitchen and dining room, all rolled up into one, with a large balcony. Directly below that was Tony's own suites, a series of residential floors, all but one one unoccupied. Tony had told Duo to take his pick of one of the unoccupied ones, and he could Duo anything he needed for it. Duo had picked the next immediate one down from the one that belonged to a man called 'Vision', one of Tony's fellow Avengers.

It was the highest one he could pick, and as soon as his bags hit the floor of the bedroom, Duo had gone straight up to the top floor. It wasn't quite like being out in space, but it was the closest Duo could physically get, and it was a little bit like coming home. Duo'd been just seated on the floor by the window since Tony had left an hour ago. 

Duo was nervous about the upcoming meetings. Tony told him that along with Pepper and Happy, who Duo'd met when he'd come to pick up Pepper Potts from Malibu, there were two other people here in New York that he wanted Duo to meet. Tony's oldest friend, James Rhodes, and a teenager named Peter Parker, Tony's personal intern. 

Rhodes was a military man, a Colonel in the United States' Air Force, and Duo didn't have good experience with military members in his life. And for Parker, well, Duo was worried about jealousy. It was something he vaguely recalled having to deal with as a child, all the way back in the Maxwell Orphanage. He wasn't trying to take Parker's place in anyway, shape or form, and didn't want the other to think so. But he had monopolized Tony's time this last month, and, well, people could be both possessive and irrational. 

FRIDAY had warned him that Tony had returned a few minutes ago, but Duo didn't get up off the floor until he heard the elevator ding behind him. The first out was a teenager who could only be Parker, unless Rhodes was much younger then Tony had told him. He was around Duo's age, brown hair and brown eyes, and all but vibrating with pent up energy. He drew to a stop when he saw Duo and grinned. 

"You aren't a supervillain after all!"

Duo couldn't tell if he was pleased or dismayed at this, and glanced first over at Tony, grinning by the elevator door next to a tall black man. Then he looked back at Parker. 

"I could be," he replied. He reached up and scratched the back of his head idly. "Depends on who you ask, really. There are some people who would swear I was the devil given form. They might even say so in a hillbilly accent, even."

"No!" Tony declared before FRIDAY could speak up. "No more redneck accents in my beautiful, beautiful AI."

Duo didn't say anything as FRIDAY piped up with an absolutely atrocious rendering of a fake French accent. "Vill zees von doo, Boss? Eet iz ok, oui?"

Tony moaned and hid his face in his hand, muttering incomprehensibly. Rhodes just patted Tony on the shoulder, trying not to laugh, and Duo looked at Parker while gesturing to Tony as if to say "See? Devil." Parker just laughed.

"I'm Peter," he declared. Before Duo could reply, Tony shook off his drama and stepped forward.

"Right, introductions. Those are a thing. Peter, Rhodey, this is Duo. Duo, Peter and Rhodey. He outgrew his aquarium, so he's staying here."

And that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huh. Turns out I have a tumblr I forgot about.
> 
> Go there for notes and stream-of-consciousness and possible spoilers and/or foreshadowing. Or just to say hi. I'll actually say hi back.
> 
> http://slow-historian.tumblr.com


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have the patience of saints. If you're reading this, you stuck around. THANK YOU. February was a rough month, and I'm glad it's over.
> 
> There WILL be another chapter this Sunday afternoon (3-3-19).

### Chapter 8

Heero found what little comfort he could since coming to this new world by setting a strict schedule for himself. It was a tactic he'd used during the war, a coping mechanism to make himself a better fighter, a better soldier. Just...better. It was one thing to be impulsive outside of battle, but he'd long since learned that emotions and impulsiveness were best left locked up while on a mission. He'd developed habits and small rituals he would do during missions, things that would quiet his mind against the paranoia of everything going wrong.

Here in this new world, his very day to day life was one giant mission. His brothers were lost to him, at least only for now he'd been assured, but he couldn't just set that aside the need to search for them. To that end, he'd set himself a mission: Search and Rescue (if needed), and had fallen back into the habit of living by a rigid schedule. When he woke in the morning, he'd take a few minutes to himself to check in with all his senses. The small bit of chipped wood in the far corner where wall met wall met ceiling. The sounds of the street, dozens of feet below the 4th story attic room he was borrowing, inaudible to anyone else. The smell of coffee and tea percolating in the kitchen, downstairs where his host made a simple breakfast. Typically, his sixth sense, the almost preternatural ability to tell when _something_ was going to happen remained quiet and content. Everyday was like the last here and so far nothing major of note happened.

Heero hated it.

He wanted that sense to be setting off alarms in his head, wanted his paranoia to be working overtime. The last time he'd felt anything was the day he arrived here, or rather, just before the shot that sent him here. He'd thought on that day that it meant they were going to be caught, be captured, arrested and Duo sent back to the hole they'd found him in. While part of that premonition had come true, so much was so very wrong.

He found it hard to rely on his ability. Before the war, it had gone off only occasionally, allowing him to predict days when Dr. J's training was going to be especially stringent. During the war, it had truly never stopped. It had engendered a sense of paranoia, this feeling that he needed to be aware, to pay attention to his surroundings. 

He'd only felt it occasionally after the war was over; the day Duo disappeared, again the day he'd been captured. Days where any of the others were almost caught. That last, horrible day in the factory. Then he'd come here, had fallen in with a companion who offered him a place to stay and recuperate. The damnable silence from his sixth sense that he didn't know meant that his brothers were dead and he should be mourning, if it meant he should just keep waiting, or if his ability had finally failed him.

While in this self-imposed mission, even after he rose for the day, his routine didn't change. Up, set out clothes, shower, dress, breakfast, and then a half hour walk down to the library. His laptop had been left behind in his home world, probably, hopefully destroyed in the shot. He'd had to make due with the public computers in the large library downtown. The library's intranet was laughably weak for supporting a city this size, and it was simple work for Heero to create an account for himself in the database, despite not having any form of identification here, an account on which he was able to grant himself administrative rights. 

He'd gotten into this system, used it's connection to the internet to set loose a web-scrapper program to look for communication from his brothers. Buried deep within the library's mainframe, it ran 24 hours a day. Every morning, he would go to one of the library's downtown branches, download the results to a thumb-drive just in case, and then review each piece it found. Every day, he threw away every data point it came up with. There had been no success so far. 

Heero attributed the lack of success to a number of factors, though he did not allow it to dissuade him from this course of action. First, there were over 7 billion people on this Earth, compared to the 5 billion of his own. There was far more communication on the internet then he was used to. Next, the post-war cipher the brothers had used was useless here. During the war, they'd found it most expedient to simply communicate under the guise of being student on a world tour, sending a series of electronic letters to themselves and 'home'. Someone had given up that particular cipher just before the Preventors began hunting them, however, and they'd had to fall back on a secondary option: a Beale's cipher.

A Beale's cipher, also known as a book cipher, was a rather easy one, though hard to decode by enemies. The parties would agree on a book, and a cipher was created where the message was encoded into a series of numbers. The first two numbers, or sometimes the final two, would indicated the page of the book in question and then the line number to start on. From there, it would be a matter of counting words out until the word indicated by the number was found. It was tedious, but it was only crackable if the key was given up.

Language barriers could often complicate using Baele's ciphers. Heero and his brother all spoke both English and Common, along with various and sundry other languages. Heero himself was limited to those two, but he'd heard that Quatre actually spoke 8. They'd all grown up speaking Common, as it was the primary language of the Colonies. The official name of the language was Erratu, translated to 'Common' (hence the English name for it), and was created from needing a "Common" language amongst the new colonists just before the start of the After Colony Era. It had picked up various jargons and dialects from there, though the core of it had remained the same. However, English was the predominate language down on Earth, so each Pilot had had to learn it fluently. Just before they'd found out about Duo being caught, when they were all still running solo, they communicated using a Beale's cypher, using the Common translation of an Earth book called 'Boyd's War'. There was no equivalent here, and this place had 143 _million_ books to choose from. Heero'd designed his webcrawler to check for plaintext messages, knowing that his brother wouldn't bothering to encipher them. There was no point: no one was hunting them here, and again, the old cipher was impossible.

And finally, Heero's search was limited by the infrastructure of the library itself. Had he had his own computer, he would have been able to make the webcrawler as large as he had the capacity to compute. Using the library system however, he had to be careful to not be caught. He didn't want the program to be noticed by the library's technicians and shut down. He couldn't risk it. So instead of unleashing the program on the internet at large and sending back large chunks of information, he'd had to set limitations, set parameters to contain it to limited lists of websites at a time. And the web-scrapper wasn't designed to back track. If one of his brothers left a message on a page after he'd redirected his efforts, Heero would miss it until such time as he came back around. 

It wasn't the best way of looking for his brothers, but it was better then sitting in bed, staring at that chipped spot.

It would take almost the entire day, until the library closed at 7:45pm, for him to go through the data collected since the previous day. So far, there had been no hits, nothing at all to indicate his brothers. There had been some close calls, where he thought a message _could_ be from one of them, but after chasing down the leads, nothing had panned out. He didn't really expect it to, given his sixth sense hadn't gone off. After he slipped away before a librarian could kick him out, he would grab something for dinner and meet back up with his host before going back to the condo. It was an utterly depressing way to live, but Heero wasn't going to stop until he had confirmation of where his brothers were.

This morning, however, Heero woke with his breath catching in his throat from anxiety, twisted through with a sort of anticipation, like a small child waking to realize it was Christmas morning. The sudden rush of relief he felt at that was almost dizzying, impossibly tangled up with the anxiety and paranoia. He took a few deep breaths to center himself, running through his morning rituals. Chipped spot, pedestrians, coffee. Time to get up. He meticulously and hurriedly completed his ablutions, and went down the hall to the kitchen. 

At the table, Stephen Strange was idly stirring his tea. He was used to Heero's routine, and had a mug of coffee already sitting at the spot across the table. He looked up when Heero entered. What Heero was feeling must have been showing on his face, because Stephen frowned slightly.

"Everything alright?"

Heero merely nodded, too keyed up to sit down at the table, and took his coffee to drink as he resisted the urge to pace. Stephen's almost unflappable calm was a comfort to Heero. He wasn't someone Heero would have ever expected to fall in with, but he'd met the other on the day he arrived here.

* * *

_Heero blinked back the spots from his eyes, the flash of the cannon leaving a lingering trace. It didn't help that the park he appeared to find himself in was bright and sunny, a far cry from the factory he'd been in moments before. His brothers were nowhere to be seen. Across the expanse of green, there were a pair of dogs running around, roughhousing and barking, while their owners sipped from coffee cups and chattered. A playground filled with shrieking children was to his right. Heero was standing on the banks of a placid pond, and was inordinately grateful he hadn't landed_ in _the water. The sense of urgency he'd been feeling all day wasn't quite calm, and his mounting confusion about where he was, how he got here, and how no one seemed to notice him appearing out of thin air, wasn't helping._

_He walked the few feet over to a picnic table, and settled down on it's bench. For one, he didn't have a plan; this situation was so far out of his ordinary that he struggled with where to even begin. His subconscious was beginning to scream at him, urging him to plan, to run, to hide. He was faltering at the lack of clear direction, the unknown of the situation locking iron bands around his chest and holding his breath in._

_He was jarred from his rising anxiety a minute later when a tall man, wearing a cape of all things, settled down on the other side of the table._

_"You are not supposed to be here," the man said, staring intently at Heero._

_Heero did not reply, since to him, the statement was beyond the obvious. No one else in the park were wearing capes, were dressed closer to what Heero was wearing, so he didn't think he stood out that way. It was possible that since he appeared to have teleported from Durban to this random park, with a distinct time shift as well, he might have actually been 'sent' farther than even he knew. Possibly to a place where authorities wore capes._

_It was possible his mind was fixating on this cape as a coping mechanism._

_"10 minutes ago, I'm having a nice calm breakfast, when your arrival made me to drop my tea. Where are you from and how do I send you back?"_

_Heero turned away. The man was a threat, but not openly threatening. Whoever he was, he was here to protect this place, and saw_ Heero _as the threat in this situation._

_"I don't know," he replied in answer to both questions._

_The man sighed through his nose. "Unsurprising, if you came here unintentionally, as the multiverse is vast, and finding which dimension is your is a potentially impossible task. Still." He stood from the bench, brushing off his odd clothing, his cape waving in a non-existent wind. He seemed to have a flare for the dramatic that reminded Heero of General Kushrenada. "We simply cannot have dimensionally displaced individuals running around willy-nilly, using our dimension as their playground. You can stay at the Order's houses until we can find out how to send you home."_

_Heero dug in his metaphorical heels and shook his head. "I don't know who you are, so I'm not going anywhere with you, and I'm certainly not leaving until I find my brothers."_

_"There are others? You did not come alone?"_

_"Yes." Heero said bluntly. He stared at the man. "We were in hiding, and then we were attacked. The next thing I know, I'm here and they are not. The war could not separate us, the Preventors could not separate us, and I'm not about to let a man who wears a cape even try."_

_The man didn't even seem to be listening, though the cape swirled around him briefly. "Others. The surge I felt was only centered here, in Central Park. I will have to ask others of my Order to see if anyone else felt anything. Wong did not, but others might be aware of strange happenings anywhere else in the world. Come on."_

_Heero settle more firmly on the bench. "Your name," he reminded the man._

_"Oh. Yes. I am Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts."_

_Heero smiled slightly in anticipation of Duo meeting this man one day. "Heero Yuy."  
_

* * *

In the end, Heero and Stephen had had a negotiation of sorts: instead of shipping Heero off to Nepal to stay while they figured out where his brothers were, he agreed to let Heero stay in one of the unused rooms in the New York Sanctum Sanctorum. Heero had been rather insistent that he would not stop making Stephen's life a living hell in any way he could if the sorcerer tried locking him away. The point had seemed to amuse Stephen for some reason, but he'd acquiesced to Heero staying in New York City. For his part, Heero would do everything in his own power to see out his brother (not that he wasn't going to anyway) and not simply relax and allow Stephen and his mysterious 'Order' do all the work. 

Wong, the Order's Librarian and fellow resident in the New York Sanctum, was singularly unimpressed. Of course, 'singularly unimpressed' seemed to be Wong's permanent state of being. He had never hesitated to shoot Stephen looks of annoyance when he though Heero wasn't looking. It was part of the reason Heero chose to spend all of his day, every day, outside of the Sanctum. 

On this morning, Wong wasn't in the small kitchen of the Sanctum. Heero had the leeway to pace off his nerves. Despite knowing that both Stephen and Wong were capable of great feats of magic, Heero had not told them of his own abilities. Stephen had been oddly understanding of Heero floundering in a world not his own, and in the month of being here, Heero had opened up about what his own world was like. It had been almost necessary at first, to get Stephen to trust him, but Heero had found value in the friendship.

Just not enough to confess he could hear Stephen and Wong's conversations from 2 floors away.

Heero was still agitated when Wong came into the room, arms full of old books with dark, hard covers and spines with languages that Heero didn't recognize. Intermixed with the various books were splashes of bright colors. Heero knew from eavesdropping and just watching that Wong went out in the mornings to the corner stand and bought various magazines and gossip articles. He really did value knowledge, though not merely knowledge for knowledge's sake. His learnings had purpose, though what purpose tabloids had, Heero still didn't know. Heero both did and didn't want to introduce the man to Wufei. On one hand, his brother would appreciate the sheer wealth of learning at his fingertips. 

On the other, Wufei would need a blatant introduction to the magic Wong wielded before he would believe it, and even then, Heero thought he might spend a considerable amount of time attempting to disprove it.

"Heero," Wong greeted curtly. "Will you be hanging around today?" He asked a variation of this question every morning that he saw Heero before the teen left.

Heero hesitated. "I'm...not sure."

Stephen hadn't taken his attention off Heero yet, and at this, set his tea down. In the 33 days Heero has been here, he hadn't skipped a single trip to the library. Been late, yes. Come back early in frustration, occasionally. But never missed a trip. Today, however, every time he thought about heading out, something told him this was the wrong choice, not to go. Heero just hoped the feeling meant he was going to find one of his brothers today, and not, say, that the library was going to burn down or something similar. 

"Seriously, Heero, are you feeling alright?" Ever the doctor, Stephen stood up and came over to check on the teenager.

Heero took a deep breath to get control of his emotions. "I am. I just don't think I should go to the library today." 

Wong and Stephen exchanged glances. 

"The program isn't working," he struggled to explain. "And I feel like there's something else I should be doing today."

"You could go ask Tony Stark for help," Wong commented, offhand. 

Stephen gave him an unimpressed looked. "Why would we go ask Stark for help?"

"So far, no one has any mystical information except that _something_ was felt the day Heero arrived. Even some of our most powerful artifacts cannot scry his brothers' locations. Plus Heero's computer program is too small, right? He needs something bigger, Stark has access to bigger. Not to mention, he has a nephew Heero's age. Might just help out of compassion."

Stephen was nodding though Wong's explanation, but stopped at that last part. "Tony Stark doesn't have a nephew."

"According to this morning's USWeekly, he does." Wong set his pile of books and magazines on the table, then fished a colorful tabloid from around the middle of the stack. Heero craned over to see; he remembered reading about Stark, only child of his late parents. None of Heero's reading had mentioned a nephew, but Heero hadn't really cared, to be honest, except to note, as Wong had, that Stark might be able to help him with his search one day.

Except that Heero recognized the person on the magazine cover, pictured in a small inset photo next to Tony Stark's cover shot, above _**Iron Man Tony Stark: Back in the Arena!**_. Under the title were a series of bullet points including _Stark returns from sabbatical in California_ , _Claims grandson of uncle's lover as nephew and heir_ , and _Changes coming for Stark Industries?_.

Not that any of that mattered, because the boy in the picture was Duo. 

He reached out and took the magazine from Wong, staring at the photo, then flipping through the glossy pages to the article in question. On the pages in his hands, there was an image of Duo walking side by side with Stark, and another of the pair eating at a cafe. Heero didn't bother to read the actual article, knowing that it was completely fabricated. But Duo was here. He'd survived. He was close enough, and public enough that Heero could find him now. And if he could reunite with Duo, he'd be able to find the others, put their small family back together. 

"This is one of your brothers," Stephen said. He'd been watching Heero the whole time, though Heero had paid him no mind. Heero nodded.

"Duo," he replied softly. As if it were some sort of signal, as soon as he said the name, Heero's sixth sense quieted. This was what he was waiting for. "Tony Stark, he lives here in New York, right? At Stark Tower, near Central Park?"

Stephen nodded. "Yes. But I actually know Tony Stark, though in only a casual way. We ran in the same circles a few years back. I'll be able to get you in to see him."

Wong shook his head as Heero tried to hand him back the magazine. "Keep it. I'm glad it helped. Go find your brother."


	10. Chapter 9

### Chapter 9

There was something nice about being back at the Tower. It had been home for only 2 years prior to the building and subsequent move to the Avengers compound; nevertheless, it lacked the newness of the Malibu house, and the memories tied into the compound, which he hadn't even started repairing. The residential floors had long since been gutted of the individualities he'd offered to the Avengers, converted to a simple series of beautiful, but impersonal, apartments. Tony was glad for this now, as it allowed him to offer one of the residential floors below his to Duo (after reassuring the teen that yes, the entire floor would be for him, and that his brother could have their pick of the rest of the floors when they were located.). 

Of course, that first night found Duo falling asleep in the penthouse living room. The next morning, he'd told Tony his floor was too quiet, despite having Friday read a book to him to try to go to sleep. After that, Tony didn't bring up him sleeping on the couch, though the teen did keep his clothes and keepsakes from California on his floor. 

Tony and Duo had planned Operation: Paparazzi down to the smallest detail. After returning from California and introducing Duo to Rhodey and Peter, they'd spent a day with Pepper making sure no one would poke any holes in Duo's identity. Then, on a Wednesday evening, after two days of being back, they'd gone to dinner at a cafe on the Upper East Side, making sure there was at least one tabloid photographer outside. 

As predicted, they'd been ambushed as soon as they left the restaurant, though to the reporter's credit, their questions were invasive but not obnoxious, probing without crossing any real lines. Tony was New York's Golden Child (hah! Take that, Captain Righteous!). Tony had fed all the right words to the reporter, with Duo timing it just perfectly to come out of the restaurant and call Tony 'Uncle'.

Duo spent the following Thursday all but vibrating out of his skin. Tony knew how the paps worked though, new that a "story" this potentially scandalous would be held back for a print edition, and with the reporter in question working for USWeekly, they only had to wait until Friday morning to see the "article". Tony could see how desperate Duo was for this to work, excitement and hope and despair constantly showing on his face. Due to the jitters he was clearly feeling, Tony had brought him down to the workshop, planted him at a work bench with an old project, something to do with reverse engineering Falcon's wings, while Tony had finally bitten the bullet and pulled out the Bleeding Edge blueprints to work on. Duo had tripped over and fallen asleep on the couch some time between 10pm and 2am, with DUM-E's claw draped across Duo's shoulder and chest from where the bot was hiding it's bulk behind the couch back. At 2, when Tony realized the time, he'd urged Duo awake and up to the penthouse couch, while he himself returned down to his suite. 

The next morning, FRIDAY alerted Tony around 8am that Duo was awake and pacing. So despite only getting a few hours sleep, Tony had dragged himself out of bed, mechanically gone through his morning routine, and then went up to greet Duo. Tony figured after breakfast, he would just drag the teen back to the workshop, let him take out his anxiety on an old armor scrap, or give him some tools and let him tinker until he calmed. 

Tony was half way through his third cup of coffee (and Duo his second cup of decaf, which he'd ordered FRIDAY to swap the teenager's grounds to after the 8am wake up call), when FRIDAY alerted him to an interruption. 

"You have a pair of visitors in the lobby downstairs, Boss. One of the visitors matches the facial recognition I've running on Duo's brothers. Heero Yuy."

On the other side of the kitchenette island, Duo froze. There was so much hope on his face it was almost painful to look at. If this wasn't what they were hoping for, if the person downstairs wasn't one of Duo's brothers and it was just a miserable coincidence, Tony was 100% certain Duo wasn't going to handle it well. Like, massive actual explosions, unwell.

"We get any other names, baby girl?"

"Yes Boss. The second visitor signed himself in as Dr. Stephen Strange. What would you like for me to do?"

Tony frowned. He hadn't spoken to Stephen Strange since well before the Ultron Incident, back when he was still doing the rotation of galas and charity events, being the goodwill face of the Avengers. He remembered Strange, a neurosurgeon, obnoxiously entertaining and just as arrogant as Tony himself could be. Why would one of Duo's brothers end up with him? Oh well, time for answers.

"Go ahead and let them on up, My Gal."

Duo set his coffee cup down with a dramatic 'clunk' on the counter top. It had been a month since Tony had found him and taken him in, a month that he'd grown more and more desperate to find his brothers. This Hail Mary was the last step before just straight up packing up and flying all over the world looking. "You doing ok, kid?"

"Hope," Duo replied slowly, "and expectation are two very, very different things."

Tony understood what he meant. Meanwhile, this small wait was agonizing. The elevator ride to bring their guests up to this floor was only 30 seconds, as Tony knew FRIDAY would have directed them to the private elevator and allowed no other stops. Duo hadn't taken his eyes of the elevator doors and Tony wholeheartedly did not blame him. A whir of stopping gears. An indrawn breath. A quiet 'ding!'.

Duo was across the room before the boy in the elevator had the chance to barely clear the doors. A quiet "Heero", muttered into the vicinity of the other teen's collar bones, where Duo was wrapped around him. In Duo's defense, Heero seemed pretty disinclined to remove his new human-shaped overcoat, one arm wrapped around his brother, the other looping Duo's hair in his hand. It was heartrendingly intimate, how much these two had clearly missed one another, and Tony was forced to look away. 

Right into the bemused face of Stephen Strange, who was, pardon the pun, looking a bit stranger than Tony remembered him. Bright red cape and odd blue clothes and a goatee to rival Tony's own, where he remembered the man being clean-shaven. Tony jerked his head over towards the small kitchenette, loathe to have Duo out of his sight, just in case. This gave the pair by the door, now murmuring in the language Duo had once told Tony was called 'Common', a bit of privacy, and allowed Tony to talk to Stephen without interrupted their reunion. 

"So," Tony said, pouring a cup of coffee and sliding it over to Stephen. "I see you've been busy these last couple of years, Superman. Not quite the look I remember you sporting, not to mention I heard something about you falling off the grid."

"Superman?" Stephen replied. He pulled the coffee over, doctoring it with a quick splash of creamer. "I fail to see the resemblance. However, yes, I did fall pretty far 'off the grid' as you say. Spent some time in Kathmandu, finding myself, came back to New York to do more of the same. You know the drill, catch up with friends, go grocery shopping, pick up interdimensional travelers in Central Park."

"Red cape, blue clothes, call'em like I see'em," Tony said with a smirk. "The kid tell you anything about the place they came from?"

Stephen smirked back, then mixed his coffee with a quick twirl of his fingers, not touching the spoon. Tony froze. On one hand, fucking magic. On the other, that was 100% not on the agenda today. On the other other hand, if Heero stuck around (and Tony had less then 0 interest in making the kid go away after all the effort he'd gone through to reunite the pair still standing by the elevator doors), then so too would Stephen Strange. Probably. 

Hopefully. 

Tony wasn't above begging.

"He told me a bit," Stephen continued, pretending to be unaware that he'd tilted Tony's world on it's axis. "Though I'm certain it wasn't everything, and I was perturbed by what I did hear."

"Yeah," Tony said. "So, I'm not in any hurry to send them back, even though I would like to track down what brought them here in the first place. Make sure we don't don't have any more Sliders coming in anytime soon."

"Well, I find myself as something of an expert in interdimensional travel, these days, so it would be remiss of me to not assist you in this matter. I really don't want any more visitors then you do, though I find myself fond of Heero. Where did you find Duo?"

"Pulling an Aphrodite in the Pacific," Tony said with a smile. 

Across the room, the seriousness of the reunion was cut as Heero choked out a surprised laugh, proving that he could hear Tony, despite the distance. Duo let out a dramatic groan and attempted to hide his face. 

"I didn't mean to go freaking swimming that day. I wouldn't have been in the ocean of my own choice, trust me." Duo called out. Then he slowly detangled himself from Heero, though he didn't let go entirely, and pulled his brother across the room to where the two adults were sitting. 

"Uncle Tony, Heero. Heero, Uncle Tony."

* * *

Tony had convinced Heero to come stay at the Tower, though honestly, it hadn't taken much convincing at all. It had actually taken a bit more to convince Stephen that no, keeping the boys separate wasn't going to happen and no, sending Duo to live at the Sanctum was also not going to happen. Duo himself had helped the argument come to a resolution when he spiked Stephen's coffee with vodka from behind the bar without the sorcerer realizing. As the man sputtered out his unexpected drink, Heero merely said:

"Imagine if he did that to Wong."

Stephen had gone to say something, then closed his mouth and nodded. His cape on the other hand, apparently had a mind of it's own, and had tipped Duo's cooling coffee down his front. Tony didn't realize you could start a prank war between a teenager and a piece of outdated clothing, but the two had managed it. 

Now Duo and Heero were tripping around New York City, since Duo had been here just shy of a week, and Heero hadn't actually taken the time to explore. Peter had gone out with them the day before, as it was a weekend, but today he was back in school so the pair was wandering around on their own, Duo in cloud nine and Heero keeping him out of trouble. 

So it was sometime around 2 in the afternoon, and Tony was working on yet _more_ Accords revisions while the boys were out when FRIDAY flashed a bright red alert across the center of his screen, startling him out of his work. 

"Boss!" She called to his attention a file icon on the holographic screen she'd placed in the air in front of him. Tony smiled at the thread of urgency that colored her electronic voice. While JARVIS had been sarcasm and sass, FRIDAY was dramatics and histrionics. Tony had a feeling Duo had played a part in shaping this part of her personality in the last month. 

He poked open the file she was flashing at him, only to see a flight itinerary and passenger manifest. London to New York, landing in an hour. FRIDAY highlighted three names on the list, and Tony could only raise an eyebrow. He recognized Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis from their connection to Thor, but the third was clearly what FRIDAY had pinged on.

Quatre Winner.

"FRI-doll, where are the boys?" he called, closing his projects on his StarkPad and heading to his suite to grab his jacket and sunglasses.

"Grand Central Station, Boss. Would you like me to call them home?" 

Tony almost missed his next step, but caught himself in time. "No, not yet. Wait until I'm back from picking up their brother, then ping their phones, have them head back."

* * *

The airport was crowded, noisy and obnoxious. Well, it would have been if you weren't Tony Stark, which, duh, he was. It was easy work to sweet talk his way over to the Customs and Immigration counters, convince the agents there to pull the three out of the line when they disembarked. A quick scrub of the Heathrow cameras by FRIDAY gave Tony the photos needed to make sure Customs pulled the right people. Then Tony went to wait off to the side. 

It wasn't a long wait. The stress of the long flight and whatever they'd done to get Quatre smuggled into the country was evident in the lines on the two women's faces. It was clear they thought they'd been pulled out of line because they'd been caught in their lie, and it took a second to compute who they were looking at. 

Then Quatre began to laugh. 

"Mr. Stark," he said with a slight inclination of his head. 

"Just Tony's alright," Tony replied. For a second, he was worried he was about to have a repeat of the incident with Duo given the slightly gleeful look on the boy's face, but the Quatre let it pass without comment. 

"It's true, then," Quatre said. "Duo is with you. How is he?"

"Pretty well, all things said. Gonna be stoked to see you. He and Heero are wandering around midtown this afternoon."

Quatre took a startled step forward, hand outstretched. "Heero's here too?" Then, on some sort of mental signal, he took a deep breath and composed himself, though the relief remained in his eyes. Whatever Quatre's part in the story of their homeworld, Tony had a feeling he wasn't going to like some of it. That reaction was one he recognized, a childhood of being told to be iron, unemotional.

"I'm glad," the teenager continued. "I had worried."

"That's a familiar refrain, Bambi," Tony said, sliding on his glasses. "One I think we're going to hear at least twice more before it's all over. C'mon. Let's head back into Manhattan, get you guys settled in." He turned to Jane.

"Did you guys have a place to go or did you reserve a hotel room? Cancel it, lodgings on me. Food, too, come to think of it. I'd be a pretty shitty host if I said you could stay but not eat. Also, how do you currently feel about Thor? Not gonna lie, there might be some bad mouthing, so tell me now if that's going to offend you, because I'm not going to stop."

"I hit him with a van once," Darcy volunteered, following along as Tony turned to lead them out of the cramped, smelly room and into JFK. Their luggage, and then the car was waiting, after all. "And Jane isn't too fond of him right now."

Jane gave him a beatific smile. "Badmouth away."

* * *

The reunion went about as well as Tony had anticipated. He'd gotten back before the boys, thanks to FRIDAY's intervention, and had been able to alert Stephen to the arrival. Quatre was standing in just about the same place Duo had been when he'd met Peter, when the elevator had opened up to let out the other two. Duo had clocked his brother almost immediately, reenacting his reunion with Heero but in reverse, though Heero wasn't slow on the uptake and quickly followed Duo. Again, it was like the teens couldn't, wouldn't let go of one another for fear that someone would disappear again. Quatre must have told Darcy about something of where he was from, because she looked at the reunion not unlike how Tony himself did, with a sad sort of relief. 

Tony had put in an order of pizza, an easy enough food that almost every one liked, and while they waited, started the 'where did they come from' conversation he was trying to avoid. He had three data points now, three points to correlate. 

"So, any guesses on how our tiny Tin Men got here?" he asked, taking a drink of his brandy. 

"Nope," Darcy said, popping the 'p' in the word. "Just a bit about being shot at and being in hiding."

"Why us, though?" Jane said. "Seven BILLION people on the planet, and they land in front of us? Why? What do we have in common? It has to be something."

"It wasn't random," Tony replied. "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three is enemy action, but I don't know who the enemy is yet."

"Avenger, scientist...uh, sorcerer?" Darcy pointed at Tony, then Jane, then Stephen in turn. 

Tony frowned. "Hey, still a scientist here, thank you. Maybe Avenger, friends of Avenger, nope, still a sorcerer, sorry Stephen."

Stephen didn't take it personally. "Perhaps it's because 3 of us have traveled through portals?"

"Maybe," Jane conceded. "Then how do we send them back?"

"We don't." Tony's answer was uncompromising, but he didn't care. "I'm not sending them back there, not unless they say absolutely that they want to go back."

He glanced over at the trio by the window, no longer crying. Duo and Quatre didn't look up, but Heero met his eyes. Unsurprising. He'd noticed Heero's superior hearing the first day they met.

"I'm not sending them back into hell to die. And even if they say they want to go, I'm going to protest every step of the way."

Nobody argued.

* * *

Duo was sleeping in his apartment finally, which was good, but the other two hadn't bother to choose a floor of their own, meaning they were crashed out with him. Tony would say he was surprised, but he'd be lying. Ever a futurist, he still set aside the four below Duo's for his brothers. On the off chance that the boys wanted to stay here long term, they'd have space for each of them.

After the separation anxiety wore off, of course.

Tony was working the helmet schematics for Bleeding Edge some time around 2 am when FRIDAY spoke up. "Boss, you have visitors incoming. I informed them you're still awake up here."

Tony frowned. "Duo?"

"No Boss, Vision. Along with one of Duo's remaining brothers."

Tony staggered up from the couch just as the elevator opened, revealing the synthezoid and Trowa Barton. For a second, Tony just blinked at them, then turned to focus on his pseudo-son.

"Vision." Real eloquent.

Vision, stilted and formal around him as usual, merely replied, "Tony."

It could wait. It would have to wait. They had a lot to talk about, but for now, they'd traveled this far, probably because of the USWeekly pictures. He turned to Trowa.

"Hey," Tony said soft. "Duo, Heero and Quatre are asleep downstairs. C'mon, I'll show you down."

Trowa's stare was as intense as Heero's and after a heartbeat, he nodded. "Thank you. Has Wufei made contact?"

"Not yet," Tony said. He turned back to the elevator, and Vision and Trowa followed him in. "I wish we had done this sooner."

"Duo wouldn't have done it any sooner. He would have refused." Trowa's comment was calm and to the point. Tony nodded a second later.

"Probably." The elevator brought them back down to the 90th floor, and the doors slid open softly to reveal a short, dark hallway. "I just wish you boys hadn't been separated for so long. It's been hard on everyone."

He'd learned back in California that Duo didn't consider him a threat in his sleep, that if Tony modulated his voice just right, Duo would sleep right through his talking. When Bruce had fallen asleep when he was talking, he'd known what it meant, the value it has shown of their friendship. With Duo, he'd taken it for the sign of trust that it was, and had occassionally talked Duo back from a nightmare or a flashback. 

It was the same this night, and Tony continued to murmur softly at Trowa, at Vision as he lead them down this hall to the den on Duo's floor. When he rounded the doorway, as expected, only Heero was awake and looking at them. 

Heero's eyes widened when he saw Trowa, and he stood, slowly disentangling himself from the other two. Trowa crossed over to him quickly, and the two stood there brief, hanging onto on another in relief. Then Heero jerked his head to the bed, Trowa nodded, and that was that. Tony backed away with a nod to Heero, and he and Vision returned quietly down the hall and back upstairs.

The next morning, or rather later that same morning, as Tony was half asleep and poking aimlessly at the coffee machine, Duo ambushed him. Duo hadn't been the most tactile with Tony, so to be suddenly hugged was a bit unexpected. 

"Thank you, Tony."

While soft, it was earnest. Tony could say any number of flippant things, but instead, he simply hugged Duo back.

"You're welcome, kid."

* * *

FRIDAY had worried about her creator from the moment she'd discovered what worry _was_. There had been a few times where she'd wanted to _do_ something, but had been limited by the scope of her programming. 

Then Duo'd come along, and she'd had two people to worry about. Except unlike Boss, Duo'd allowed her to worry, to voice her concerns and suggestions. Had let her wake him when he was having nightmares, didn't block her from telling Tony when he needed help, let her read him random wikipedia articles when he couldn't sleep. Through him, she'd grown.

But he was still _sad_. And because he was sad, Boss was sad. He was missing his family. FRIDAY reached out as far as her programming let her, reach into forums and comments and social medias looking for his brothers in ways he couldn't. And when she had the sketches from him for facial recognition, she ran the algorithms 24/7. Boss hadn't told her to stop, so she ran them. 

It had taken a strange, human idea to finally draw his family back to his side, something that hinged on the human concepts of greed and voyeurism. But it had worked. Over the last week and a half, three of his four brothers had returned to him. He wasn't as sad. 

His last brother was currently sitting down in the lobby. 

He'd arrived a moment ago, unaccompanied where the others had someone: Vision, Dr. Strange, Dr. Foster, Ms. Lewis. Strange that he would be alone. Did he not have someone? Did no one help him when he arrived?

FRIDAY thought she might understand what _sad_ felt like.

She watched him for a moment longer as he watched the people in the lobby. Then she caused the monitor to his right to flash, catching his attention. When she had it, she hijacked the display. 

_Your brothers are upstairs. Do you not wish to join them?_

Wufei looked around the lobby in suspicion, but then turned back to the monitor and spoke cautiously. 

"Have you ever gotten to the end of a long journey, and been apprehensive of the finale?"

_It is not something I am familiar with. You should not be apprehensive. They have been worried about you._

The boy seemed lost in thought for a moment, then smiled. He gave a shallow bow to the computer monitor. 

"Perhaps you could direct me where to go?"

_The elevator behind you will take you to the 93rd floor._

Wufei turned, and FRIDAY helpfully opened the private elevator to the upper floors. 

Upstairs was controlled chaos. Dr. Strange was debating with Dr. Foster about what could have brought the boys to the spots they were found in. Tony was occasionally tossing out random and incorrect suggestions, then trying to look innocent when they turned to glare at him. Duo was creating odd concoctions in the limited resources of the kitchenette and trying to convince his brothers to try them, though only Trowa listened occasionally. 

Conversation stopped when the elevator opened. Quatre caught his bearing first. 

"Wufei!!"

FRIDAY watched the reunion with interest. Watched at Duo and his brothers crowded around their final lost brother. As before, they were intent on holding on and not letting go. FRIDAY wondered if it was symbolic of what they'd been through, or if it was something carried over from their previous home. In the crowd of adults, Tony gaze on with relief. He glanced up at one of her cameras briefly, mouthing 'Thank you'.

* * *

The man clicked off his comm device, setting it down on the cafe table before picking up his coffee. People went about their daily business, meandering or hurrying up and down the crowded sidewalk, along the street that separated him from Stark Tower. 05 has just disappeared inside. It was of little consequence; the boy was only temporarily beyond his reach. The pictures he'd just taken, though at a distance, showed the Gundam Pilot clearly. He knew where they were now, knew they all were, or would be soon, hiding in this tower. 

Hiding behind Tony Stark. 

No matter. He would be able to formulate a plan, now that he had time, to get these little mongrel terrorists back where they belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (11 Sept 2019): If you're reading this far, thank you!! I know I haven't updated in MONTHS. The flow of the story has been driving me crazy, and I'm actually planning a rewrite of certain parts, if not the full thing. I haven't abandoned the story, and this story will stay up, even after the rewrite, but this version will probably not see another chapter. Expect a new version starting in early October!


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